Women's Drinking across the Adult Life Course as Compared to Men's

Abstract

Summary The study of drinking differences by age and sex is extended by describing the prevalence, incidence and duration of multiple drinking patterns and problems in each decade of adult life for women as compared to men. A U. S. longitudinal general population sample with two measurement points, 7 years apart, is used. The incidence for drinking patterns putting persons at risk for serious problems is highest among men throughout most of the adult life course but the sex ratio converges in the 30's. Women are found to display higher rates of remission across all decades of the life course; women are more likely to report duration of the drinking patterns in the 30s. These results suggest that the emergence and persistence of some ‘at risk’ drinking patterns occupy a smaller “temporal space’ for women than for men. Selected findings from the longitudinal analysis for women are compared to cohort analysis using U. S. cross‐sectional data from the mid to late 20th century. The results suggest that the longitudinal findings can be generalized to these historical periods.