ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the new social patterns of distress emerging from those expanded avenues of research. The first set of new patterns relates distress to life course disruptions and unfavourable developments. The second set of new patterns relates distress to qualities of the residential neighbourhood. The life course disruption hypothesis focuses on two possible links between adult mental health and the divorce of one's parents in childhood: impaired status attainment and primed interpersonal difficulties. The research analyses indicate that lower education and more frequent and persistent economic hardship form the main socioeconomic links between childhood parental divorce and adulthood depression. In the psychological research analysts' looked for evidence of the best age to have begun parenthood, in terms of its association with current depression. The chapter illustrates the core results of social statistical models, based on the Aging, Status, and the Sense of Control (ASOC) survey sample of persons ages eighteen through ninety-five.
