Pearlin et al. (2005) emphasized that the stressors that are patterned by social disadvantage are the “serious stressors” that capture major hardships, conflicts, and disruptions in life. These include disorderly transitional events which are role changes that are non-normative, undesired, involuntary and sometimes irreversible, such as teenage parenthood or school dropout. These stressors are concentrated among low SES groups and in addition to their negative emotional impact, they are critical in transmitting social disadvantage from one generation to the next because they tend to place low SES persons on trajectories of low education, low job prospects, and low income that lead to the proliferation of other stressors. Financial stressors, especially those that are characterized by continuity and repetitiveness over the life course are among the most powerful of stressful life experiences (Pearlin et al. 2005). Other sources of social and economic adversity, especially those that are chronic and recurring and that occur in major social domains such as the role of breadwinning, work, and family should also be assessed.
