Highly educated women are more likely to be hazardous drinkers

Just another white wine, I have worked so hard. It’s a common excuse among highly educated women on terraces, which then cycle home lightly intoxicated. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) these women with a good and responsible job are more often than ‘ dangerous drinkers ‘ in comparison with women with low-skilled work.

The OECD actually had good news: the alcohol consumption in Western countries is 2.5 per cent lower in the past 20 years, according to new research. In the OECD Member States (34 wealthy countries) people now consume an average of 10 liters of pure alcohol per year-that is about one hundred bottles of wine per person. In the period 1992-2012 the Dutch are also drinking 7 percent less.

Price for emancipation

But highly skilled women are not drinking less. In most of the Western countries they are more often a ‘ dangerous drinker ‘ than low-educated women, according to the research. The opposite of men, who drink less.

Because highly-educated women often have children at a later age, they go bubbling sooner than house mothers. When they drink they drink alcohol, because that is the social convention. According to the OECD is this can be dangerous. ‘ Hazardous drinking ‘ is from the point of view of the OECD two glass days per day on average.

“Women are thus faced with a situation where the limits of alcohol consumption are higher”, writes the Belgian newspaper De Morgen. According to the daily newspaper a price for emancipation is this kind of drinking behavior. “Women with high education may be drinking more, because they are exposed to more stress.”

Women vs. men

In a few countries highly skilled women are having more drinking problems, according to OECD. In Australia, Canada, England, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland and the United States highly educated women are much more a ‘ dangerous drinker ‘ than low-skilled women .

According to the study, women still don’t hold a candle to men as far as the number of alcohol consumptions that annually is poured in the throat. But how long that will take is the question. Because according to the OECD, this ‘ gender gap ‘closes rapidly.

Photo credit: JodiWomack / Photo / CC BY