In the present study current social class, parental social class and social mobility have been compared in a series of 111 depressed patients of different diagnostic subgroups and of 97 non-psychiatric controls. Social class III was shown to be overrepresented in the unipolar, bipolar and unspecified groups. However, no differences concerning parental social class emerged. Unipolar and bipolar patients were more downwardly mobile than the neurotic depressives, the unspecified depressives and the controls.