The interrelationship between social class, early parent death, and mental illness

Synopsis The study aims to determine (1) the extent to which parental social class influences the incidence of early parent death; (2) the effect of parental social class on the outcome of early parent death, in terms of vulnerability to adult mental illness; (3) whether early parent death affects the age of terminating full-time education; and (4) whether early bereaved subjects lag behind their non-bereaved contemporaries in social class status. The study shows that parental social class does influence the outcome of early parent death and that early bereaved subjects do lag behind in social class status.