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Aaron White, a senior scientific adviser at NIAAA, had hypothesized that once adolescents who drank little or not at all got older, they would remain nondrinkers or light drinkers. “But that’s not what’s happening right now,” he said.
White posits two possible explanations: One is that life transitions such as getting married and having children are occurring later than they used to. “These transitions in life are protective against drinking to excess,” he said. So with more and more people delaying them until later or putting them off altogether, that means higher consumption rates will continue at the population level.
Another explanation is the rise in drinking among women. While alcohol use among men 26 to 64 has been slightly decreasing, it has increased in adult women, especially among 30- to 45-year-olds.
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Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who has conducted extensive research on this topic, explained to me, “What’s really striking is that when you look at women in midlife, the increases in binge drinking have been concentrated in women with the highest levels of education.” It’s women with a college degree or higher, women in the highest income brackets and those with the “highest prestige occupations” who have the steepest increases in alcohol consumption and binge drinking.
Like White, Keyes attributes part of this change to the delay in family responsibilities. Plus, “there is a lot of messaging around alcohol use as part of a luxury lifestyle,” she said. “You have more women with higher levels of discretionary income in occupations that are typically more male-dominated, where there’s a drinking culture and workplace, and all those combine to create conditions that women want to drink more.”
Neither White nor Keyes discount the role of stress in this trend. White is concerned about the increased incidence of drinking alone in some young people, which could be a sign that some are using alcohol as a salve for underlying mental health distress.
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But Keyes told me that drinking to cope is not the primary driver behind the increase among professional women. Her research on this topic, which has yet to be published, indicates that “by and large, the biggest factor that mediates the reversal occurring [for women] from adolescence to adulthood is drinking for fun.” For them, the drinking culture is part of a desired lifestyle that alcohol companies are eager to capitalize on.
It’s testament to the power of public health messaging that drinking among underage Americans and young adults has been declining. Given these emerging demographic trends, the next area of focus should be on educating adults — especially women — about the harms of excessive drinking.
Studies should also examine what messages resonate the most. For instance, would learning that alcoholic liver disease is rising sharply among younger women change their behaviors? Or that even one serving of alcohol per day increases the risk of breast cancer by approximately 10 percent, with additional servings adding exponentially to that risk?
“It’s difficult because the alcohol industry is very well-funded in countering those kinds of public health messages,” Keyes said. The current trends won’t be easy to reverse, but it would be a shame if increased opportunities for women to pursue careers and decide when to start families result in their poorer overall health.
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Young people seem to be getting the message about the dangers of alcohol use. Underage consumption has been decreasing steadily for decades, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
Here’s the problem: Once young people — especially women — get into their late 20s, that responsible behavior often starts to slip. The challenge now is finding out a way to keep them on the right track.
First, let’s look at the good news: Between 2002 and 2021, the prevalence of alcohol use in the past 30 days among 16- and 17-year-olds dropped by 58 percent. Among 14- and 15-year-olds, it fell 69 percent. Today’s high school and college-age students consume less alcohol and are less likely to binge drink compared with their earlier peers.
Among teens, males have experienced greater drops compared with females, but the prevalence of drinking has decreased in both. This continues into the 18- to 25-year-old cohort, though with a twist. It used to be that male drinking in this age group far eclipsed female drinking. Now, college-age females are more likely to drink and binge drink than males.
Overall, it’s good that young people are drinking less. The problem is that this positive trend isn’t sustained.
Aaron White, a senior scientific adviser at NIAAA, had hypothesized that once adolescents who drank little or not at all got older, they would remain nondrinkers or light drinkers. “But that’s not what’s happening right now,” he said.
White posits two possible explanations: One is that life transitions such as getting married and having children are occurring later than they used to. “These transitions in life are protective against drinking to excess,” he said. So with more and more people delaying them until later or putting them off altogether, that means higher consumption rates will continue at the population level.
Another explanation is the rise in drinking among women. While alcohol use among men 26 to 64 has been slightly decreasing, it has increased in adult women, especially among 30- to 45-year-olds.
Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University who has conducted extensive research on this topic, explained to me, “What’s really striking is that when you look at women in midlife, the increases in binge drinking have been concentrated in women with the highest levels of education.” It’s women with a college degree or higher, women in the highest income brackets and those with the “highest prestige occupations” who have the steepest increases in alcohol consumption and binge drinking.
Like White, Keyes attributes part of this change to the delay in family responsibilities. Plus, “there is a lot of messaging around alcohol use as part of a luxury lifestyle,” she said. “You have more women with higher levels of discretionary income in occupations that are typically more male-dominated, where there’s a drinking culture and workplace, and all those combine to create conditions that women want to drink more.”
Neither White nor Keyes discount the role of stress in this trend. White is concerned about the increased incidence of drinking alone in some young people, which could be a sign that some are using alcohol as a salve for underlying mental health distress.
But Keyes told me that drinking to cope is not the primary driver behind the increase among professional women. Her research on this topic, which has yet to be published, indicates that “by and large, the biggest factor that mediates the reversal occurring [for women] from adolescence to adulthood is drinking for fun.” For them, the drinking culture is part of a desired lifestyle that alcohol companies are eager to capitalize on.
It’s testament to the power of public health messaging that drinking among underage Americans and young adults has been declining. Given these emerging demographic trends, the next area of focus should be on educating adults — especially women — about the harms of excessive drinking.
Studies should also examine what messages resonate the most. For instance, would learning that alcoholic liver disease is rising sharply among younger women change their behaviors? Or that even one serving of alcohol per day increases the risk of breast cancer by approximately 10 percent, with additional servings adding exponentially to that risk?
“It’s difficult because the alcohol industry is very well-funded in countering those kinds of public health messages,” Keyes said. The current trends won’t be easy to reverse, but it would be a shame if increased opportunities for women to pursue careers and decide when to start families result in their poorer overall health.
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