Disengagement theory

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Disengagement theory delinates how relationships between people and other members of society are severed or altered in quality; each of these events constitute a form of disengagement. The theory was formulated by Cumming and Henry in the 1960s. Its specific focus on American society circa 1960s has been a target of criticism.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Postulates

The theory has the following postulates:

• Postulate 1: Everyone expects death, and one's abilities will likely deteriorate over time. As a result, every person will lose ties to others in his or her society.
• Postulate 2: Because individual interactions between people strengthen norms, an individual who has fewer varieties of interactions has greater freedom from the norms imposed by interaction. Consequently, this form of disengagement becomes a circular or self-perpertuating process.
• Postulate 3: Because men have a centrally instrumental role in America, and women a socioemotional one, disengagement differs between men and women.
• Postulate 4: The individual's life is punctuated by ego changes. For example, aging, a form of ego change, causes knowledge and skill to detriorate. However, success in an industrialised society demands certain knowledge and skill. To satisfy these demands, age-grading ensures that the young possess sufficient knowledge and skill to assume authority and the old retire before they lose their skills. This kind of disengagement is effected by the individual, prompted by either ego changes or the organisation—which is bound to organisational imperatives—or both.
• Postulate 5: When both the individual and society are ready for disengagement, complete disengagement results. When neither is ready, continuing engagement results. When the individual is ready and society is not, a disjunction between the expectations of the individual and of the members of this social systems results, but engagement usually continues. When society is ready and the indidviual is not, the result of the disjunction is usually disengagment.
• Postulate 6: Man's central role is work, and woman's is marriage and family. If individuals abandon their central roles, they drastically lose social life space, and so suffer crisis and demoralisation unless they assume the different roles required by the disengaged state.
• Postulate 7: This postulate contains two main concepts.
• (a) Readiness for disengagement occurs if:
  • An individual is aware of the shortness of life and scarcity of time.
  • Individuals perceive their life space decreasing.
  • A person loses ego energy.
• (b) Each level of society grants individuals permission to disengage because of the following:
  • Requirements of the rational-legal occupational system in an affluent society
  • The nature of the nuclear family
  • The differential death rate
• Postulate 8: Fewer interactions and disengagement from central roles lead to the relationships in the remaining roles changing. In turn, relational rewards become more diverse, and vertical solidarities are transformed to horizontal ones.
• Postulate 9: Disengagement theory is independent of culture, but the form it takes is bound by culture.