Coping resources tend to increase with grade level. The meaning invested in both stressors/difficulties and resources/advantages for individuals play a significant role here in the severity of their impact or strength of their effectiveness. Considerations of meanings helps widen our understanding of the role of psychosocial pathways such as confidence, esteem, and perceptions of control in relationships between stressful experience and mental health and well-being. The findings in an earlier Whitehall II quantitative study which showed that social support does not explain the grade gradient in depression can be better understood with reference to grade variation in (a) the meaning and value of social relations and support; (b) the structure of social ties and their enabling access to resources; and (c) the additional resources and positive features of work and life outside available to individuals. This book notes the necessary reliance on social ties for lower grades, who have fewer additional resources at their disposal. We have witnessed a growth nationally in work-related mental ill health since 2010, and an increase in poor quality work. This book emphasises that satisfying features of work are not evenly distributed across employment grades in the study.