Thirty Years of Loneliness… and of Depression

From 1970 to 2002, depression increased in France mainly due to the combined effects of the weakening of marital ties and changes in the social rules governing the interiority of the individual. An increase in the numbers of single people was the expression of this lower marital integration. The economic depression that followed the post-war boom, and social pressures to be a distinct and powerful self, occurred simultaneously, altering the regulation of the subject. By using data on depression and suicide, and combining micro and macro approaches, it is possible to evaluate the effects of the growth of various categories of individuals on depression and to better understand the impact of tensions related to the economic crisis of the 1980s. Examination in terms of the shocks associated with the state of widowhood or unemployment leads to the hypothesis of a model of adaptation to stress, substituting a new normality for the old, rather than continuous progression.