Delineating the effects of psychosocial factors affecting depression in late age requires understanding how the elderly cope with environmental factors and life events amidst the dynamics of a family and context that is multigenerational, influenced by aging, cohort differences, and historical events. Overall, negative social relations with parents, children, and friends tend to decrease, while spousal negativity being stable over time, well into old age. Spousal loss is the most significant life event in late age, and spousal bereavement is associated with declining mental and physical health and increased risk of mortality. In addition, geriatric patients also experience a depressive feedback loop where the negative aspects of their depressive symptomatology may provoke close members in the social network members to distance themselves from the individual in crisis. In large urban areas, individuals with a higher socioeconomic status (SES) have greater opportunities for engaging in negative coping behaviors, while individuals with a lower SES have a more limited set of coping resources at their disposal due to limited availability of some coping choices. The most consistently found prognostic factors are physical illness, impairments, disability, and the associated impairment of daily functioning. Up to 97% of older persons with serious suicidal behavior have a mental disorder with major depression accounting for about 50% of cases of suicidal behavior in late life. Studies show that reinforcement and more exposure with close social networks along with early detection of depressive symptoms can attenuate most of the debilitation associated with depression in late life.