Life Cycle

While the status of older adults varies cross-culturally, in the United States and other industrialized nations, elders are ascribed low status. This low status may be attributed to the cultural associations of elders with disease, disability, death, and dying. In the United States, the emphasis on independence, autonomy, and bodily integrity casts persons who deviate from the norm as morally and socially suspect. The sick, disabled, dying, and elderly are often stigmatized and socially isolated. Undoubtedly elders experience these negatively valued states more often than any other age group; however, the cultural value of any one of these experiences depends upon a particular sociohistorical and cultural context. For instance, immigrant and minority subcultures in the United States may accord far greater prestige and importance to elders than is found in the dominant culture.

Many social scientists in aging studies have examined how to forestall or decrease disability and disease among older adults in order to improve their quality of life and ensure prolonged social integration. Activity theory was one of the first approaches to understanding elders' social experience. Activity theory asserts that older adults have better lives if they maintain a high level of varied activities. Somewhat commonsensical, activity theory does not address the underlying reasons for relinquishment of activities. This shortcoming may open the possibility of "blaming the victim"—if elders have a poor quality of life, it is because they chose to disengage from their social roles and activities.

Disengagement theory is a response to activity theory and seeks to remove the blame for relinquishment of activities from individual elders and instead houses responsibility within human biological change. It proposes that the biological changes accompanying the aging process naturally disincline elders toward continued participation in the productive spheres. However, disengagement theory has the potential to conflate aging with senescence and works to naturalize the segregation of older adults within society. Continuity theory might be conceived as a middle-of-the-road approach. It explains the circumscribed social experience of older adults as a product of role continuity. The roles one acquires as an adult do not change, and as elders age and relinquish physically or mentally demanding spheres, the remaining roles available to them become more rigidly claimed and new roles are not sought after. Continuity theory does not explain why some elders continue to seek new experiences and skills.