British Study Finds That Higher Levels of Education Lead to Greater Alcohol Consumption Among Women

A study conducted by Maria Huerta and Francesca Borgonovi, researchers at the London School of Economics, found that women who spent any time in college, and especially those with a college degree, are more likely than other women to become heavy drinkers of alcohol and are more likely to develop drinking problems later in life.

The study followed thousands of women born in the United Kingdom in the year 1970, so the subjects are now 42 years old. The results showed that women with some college education were 71 percent more likely than other women to drink heavily on a regular basis. For women with a college degree, they were 86 percent more likely to drink heavily on a regular basis. Women with college experience were 1.7 times as likely as other women to have been diagnosed with a drinking problem.

The authors state that possible reasons for differences in alcohol consumption by educational levels may be that educated women are more likely to be in social and professional positions were drinking alcohol is more commonplace, educated women are more likely to postpone having children until later years, and there may be a greater acceptability of alcohol abuse among their educated peers.

The article was published in the journal Social Science and Medicine and can be accessed here.