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What's driving more women to drink?
Not only is the gap shrinking between men and women who drink, but ISU researchers found variations in the amount and frequency women drink based on age, race, education, marital status and other factors. Susan Stewart, professor of sociology, says the research compared the experiences of women in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s to see how life changes and events influence drinking.
Overall, 52 percent of women reported drinking around seven days in the last month and averaged just over two drinks a day. Stewart; Gloria Jones Johnson, University Professor of sociology; and Cassandra Dorius, assistant professor of human development and family studies, analyzed data from The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. The survey follows thousands of people starting as teens and into adulthood.
While women still drink less than men, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, there is little evidence to explain their increase in consumption. Stress, social acceptance of alcohol and life changes are often cited as potential factors, but Stewart says this is largely anecdotal. By comparing alcohol consumption across social categories, the researchers want to provide a greater understanding of why women drink as well as dispel some myths.
"Some of our findings really break down stereotypes, such as alcohol use is highest among poor women and underrepresented women," Stewart said. "We found that not to be true. White women and women with more education and financial means have much higher rates of alcohol consumption."
[...]
Alcohol is the third-leading preventable cause of death in the U.S., according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Approximately 88,000 people die every year from alcohol-related causes, which is more than opioid overdoses (60,000) and motor vehicle crashes (34,000). ISU researchers point to the physical, mental and emotional health issues associated with alcohol use as important reasons for this work.
"After decades of steady increases, women's life expectancy has leveled off in the last five years partly as a result of increased alcohol consumption," Dorius said. "As the main caretakers of children, aging parents and extended family members, women's alcohol use can have lasting effects on the family."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 21 2019, @11:16PM (4 children)
Let me add my own small twist:
Booze is expensive, a REALLY profitable thing to sell to people.
Business has identified hard liquor as a growth market. The promotion of wine and now hard liquor in the US has gotten out of control, and they are counting on feminist women to become alkies just like men used to be back before feminism.
"You've come a long way, baby."
(For the old timers who remember the Virginia Slims cigarrete ads of yesteryear.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @03:04PM (2 children)
Sure, booze is expensive ....
Oh, no, wait, it's not. You can get lit for the price of a large water jug (free if you recycle), a couple of condoms, a few pounds of sugar, the flavour of your choice, and some yeast.
OK, but tasty booze is expensive ...
Oh, no, wait, it's not. You can buy kits to make decent booze for around $4/bottle or less, or if you're willing to do a little recipe diving and smart buying, you can drop that price to under $2/bottle and some patience.
OK, but convenient, tasty booze is expensive ...
It's really not. You can get very drinkable hooch with a smart purchase or two, or stock a home cellar at from-the-winery prices, or get growlers from your favourite artisanal craft gastropub at low, low prices.
OK, but the price of production is so laughably low they're coining it!
In the big picture, not really. Overall alcohol consumption is on a long term decline (just look at the mergers and gyrations in the big brewers, it's been going on for a while), while equipment is still ruinously expensive, or total custom work, there are a lot of employee hours involved in moving and malting and bottling and all the rest of it. On top of that, now that the Evil Tobacco Monster is beaten to its knees, alcohol is the new target for sin taxes.
What am I saying, it's not a new target, it's been a favourite target for sin taxes for centuries. And this leads to the other end of it: on top of all the costs of production, and the costs of compliance, and regular sales and employment and other taxes, we have special alcohol taxes that only apply to the alcohol industry. Granted, they're not trebling the price of every bottle, but they eat into the margins of every producer.
So, yeah. Profitable? Not necessarily. Your favourite ultracraft distillery might not even be in business a year from now. They go under all the time. Breweries, ditto. They're choked by taxes and fettered by regulation, and while sipping alcohol may seem cool in some circles, the modern prohibitionists are up to their old antics again, having utterly failed to learn the lessons of ... goodness, prohibition was not even a century ago.
Oh well. Nice theory you have there. Shame if reality were to happen to it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @03:43PM (1 child)
Hey sperg, most consumed alcohol is made by the big alcohol conglomerates. They are not about to go under.
Go back to saving money by sniffing gasoline fumes from your lawnmower.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @06:53PM
Not yet.
They are, however, under increasing activism-driven lawsuit pressure driven by people like MADD (an organisation so prohibition-driven that even their founder said they were getting a little extreme), while their margins are under pressure (note the price wars) and their volumes are under pressure (reducing revenue). Even where their markets are expanding (mostly less developed nations) their margins are under pressure because those places are poorer.
Couple this with a capital-intensive structure, leading to low ROI with moderate to long lead times, and it's not exactly burning up the Dow Jones.
So: going out of business tomorrow? No. Cashing in hand over fist as per the suggestion of the OP? Not even close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 22 2019, @06:20PM
Cheaper off-the-shelf booze with a bigger variety in flavours and price probably also has a lot to do with it.
Gone are the days of the only alcohol readily available being either at bars, or six packs of beers at grocers.
Even medium sized supermarkets now have entire aisles, yes, aisles of wines and spirits from literally all over the world, Australia to France to California--- yick!
It's pretty easy to buy fairly palatable wines for less than €20 a bottle, with always more varieties to try.
Even beers now have a similar model after the whole craft beer thing. Like kids at a candy stall, drinkers really are spoiled for choice nowadays.
But I still think the biggest shift in drinking habits has been the move from pub/restaurant based drinking to private consumption. So far, governments don't seem concerned enough to intervene.