Educated Women Are Heaviest Drinkers
Turns out there might be some truth in the idea of college girls partying just a little bit harder than their less-educated counterparts. Following the conclusion of a 40 year study held by the London School of Economics, researchers have discovered that women who went to university for any amount of time, and especially those who hold degrees, are twice as likely to drink heavily and develop drinking problems over time.
The study followed the lives of thousands of men and women within the UK, all born in 1970, and discovered that women who were educated tended to be much more likely of drinking heavily on a regular basis than women who had never attained a higher-education degree. Women with some college-level education were 71 percent more likely to drink daily, while women with degrees were 86 percent more likely. Additionally, women with higher education experience were also 1.7 times more likely to have a drinking problem than women who were less educated.
A similar link between between education and drinking habits was found among men as well, but to a much lesser extent than in women.
“The more educated women are, the more likely they are to drink alcohol on most days and to report having problems due to their drinking patterns,” the study details. ”The better-educated appear to be the ones who engage the most in problematic patterns of alcohol consumption.”
Perhaps more shocking was the discovery by researchers that future drinking habits could be predicted by using the test scores of schoolgirls as young as 5. Those who scored “medium” or “high” grades were up to 2.1 times more likely to drink daily once they became adults.
“Both males and females who achieved high-level performance in test scores administered at ages five and 10 are significantly more likely to abuse alcohol than individuals who performed poorly on those tests,” says the report.
Francesca Borgonovi and Maria Huerta, the authors of the study, suggest that this increase of imbibing alcohol among educated women could be the result of more active social lives and the decision to postpone having children until later in life, as well as entering male-dominated jobs where drinking is considered a staple of the workplace culture.
“Reasons for the positive association of education and drinking behaviors may include: a more intensive social life that encourages alcohol intake; a greater engagement into traditionally male spheres of life, a greater social acceptability of alcohol use and abuse; more exposure to alcohol use during formative years; and greater postponement of childbearing and its responsibilities among the better educated,” says the report.
The study can be found in the journal of Social Science & Medicine.