The Last Strand: Remnants of Engagement in the Later Years

Disengagement theorists argue that a benefit of disengagement is that it allows the individual to die without anxiety over unfulfilled plans and role-obligations. This paper examines data concerning readiness to die of persons highly disengaged but for their embeddedness in a kinship role. Readiness, and even desire to die co-exist for such aged people with the felt obligation to live in order to fulfill kinship role requirements. At the same time, while the very existence of the aged is increasingly called into question within the broader culture which devalues the aged, kinship obligations provide the aging individual with a rationale to justify his own continued existence.