Study says that women are drinking more, while men are drinking less

There is an Internet meme that is a commentary on the changing drinking habit between the genders that is apparently confirmed by a new study. The meme, written in the Philippine language, says that women of today could no longer cook as well as their mothers did, but they drink a lot as much as their fathers did.

A study by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which used a one-decade data covering the years 2002 through 2012, found that women in the US who had a drink the past 30 days went up to 48 percent from 45 percent. In contrast, men’s drinking pattern went the opposite direction with 56 percent saying they had a drink the past 30 days from 57.4 percent, reports the New York Daily News.

Another indicator of the changing drinking pattern between the genders is frequency of alcohol consumption. While the average number of days that men consume booze is higher, the direction remains the same. The frequency among women is up to 7.3 average days in a month from 6.8 days, while among men, the average went down to 9.5 days from 9.9 days.

The numbers are indicators that “the differences between men and women are diminishing,” says Aaron White, lead author of the study. For Jezebel, a women’s Web site, it is evidence that feminism is working with women consuming alcohol almost as much as men.

The narrowing of the differences between men and women over the 10-year period was observed in current drinking, number of drinking days per month, past year alcohol abuse and past year driving under the influence of alcohol, according to the study, published in the September issue of PubMed.

But by volume, women have to catch up since men consume an average of 18 litres a year versus 7.8 litres among women.

The study did not find a clear reason for the converging patterns of alcohol use and apparently could not be explained by recent trends in employment status, pregnancy status or marital status. The authors, led by White, say more research is needed to identify the psychosocial and environmental contributors to the changes.

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