IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v68y2009i7p1263-1270.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social roles and alcohol consumption: A study of 10 industrialised countries

Author

Listed:
  • Kuntsche, Sandra
  • Knibbe, Ronald A.
  • Gmel, Gerhard

Abstract

The empirical evidence as regards the precise associations between alcohol use and social roles, and these associations across genders and cultures is heterogeneous. The literature tends to focus on two central but conflicting theories. The first - classic role theory - assumes that a higher number of social roles is associated with a more structured life and thus fewer opportunities to drink heavily. The second - the multiple burden hypothesis - posits that the increasing complexity of multiple social roles leads to higher stress levels, and thus to increased alcohol use. Survey data on 25-54-year olds in 10 western industrialised countries which participate in the Gender, Alcohol and Culture: An International Study (GenACIS) project were used to test whether holding the three main social roles - partnership, parenthood, and paid labour - had a more protective or a more detrimental association with problematic alcohol use than holding fewer roles. Age and education were included as possible confounders, while the outcome variables were risky single occasion drinking (RSOD) and heavy-volume drinking. For both men and women and in almost all countries, the study found that those who had all three roles were least likely to drink heavily or engage in RSOD, thus supporting the assumptions of classic role theory. It also found that the protective effect of multiple roles was more consistent for RSOD. There were a few countries where a two-role model gave a better fit. Results for Germany (RSOD), Switzerland, and the Unites States (heavy-volume drinking) indicate that the role of paid labour appears to be particularly relevant for risky alcohol use among women. Despite some variability in the association between paid labour and heavy drinking or RSOD among women, in almost all countries the greater the number of roles a person held, the lower their risk of this type of alcohol use was.

Suggested Citation

  • Kuntsche, Sandra & Knibbe, Ronald A. & Gmel, Gerhard, 2009. "Social roles and alcohol consumption: A study of 10 industrialised countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1263-1270, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:68:y:2009:i:7:p:1263-1270
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(09)00032-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hibbard, Judith H. & Pope, Clyde R., 1991. "Effect of domestic and occupational roles on morbidity and mortality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 805-811, January.
    2. Knibbe, R. A. & Drop, M. J. & Muytjens, A., 1987. "Correlates of stages in the progression from everyday drinking to problem drinking," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 463-473, January.
    3. Whitehead, Margaret & Burström, Bo & Diderichsen, Finn, 2000. "Social policies and the pathways to inequalities in health: a comparative analysis of lone mothers in Britain and Sweden," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 255-270, January.
    4. Arber, Sara & Khlat, Myriam, 2002. "Introduction to 'social and economic patterning of women's health in a changing world'," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 54(5), pages 643-647, March.
    5. Lahelma, Eero & Arber, Sara & Kivelä, Katariina & Roos, Eva, 2002. "Multiple roles and health among British and Finnish women: the influence of socioeconomic circumstances," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 54(5), pages 727-740, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jason C. Bond & Sarah C.M. Roberts & Thomas K. Greenfield & Rachael Korcha & Yu Ye & Madhabika B. Nayak, 2010. "Gender Differences in Public and Private Drinking Contexts: A Multi-Level GENACIS Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 7(5), pages 1-25, May.
    2. Danika I. DesRoches & S. Hélène Deacon & Lindsey M. Rodriguez & Simon B. Sherry & Raquel Nogueira-Arjona & Mariam M. Elgendi & Sandra Meier & Allan Abbass & Fiona E. King & Sherry H. Stewart, 2021. "Homeschooling during COVID-19: Gender Differences in Work–Family Conflict and Alcohol Use Behaviour among Romantic Couples," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-18, June.
    3. Roberts, Sarah C.M., 2012. "Macro-level gender equality and alcohol consumption: A multi-level analysis across U.S. States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 60-68.
    4. Tuong Manh Vu & Charlotte Probst & Alexandra Nielsen & Hao Bai & Petra S. Meier & Charlotte Buckley & Mark Strong & Alan Brennan & Robin Purhouse, 2020. "A Software Architecture for Mechanism-Based Social Systems Modelling in Agent-Based Simulation Models," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 23(3), pages 1-1.
    5. Paradis, Catherine, 2011. "Parenthood, drinking locations and heavy drinking," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(8), pages 1258-1265, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fritzell, Sara & Ringbäck Weitoft, Gunilla & Fritzell, Johan & Burström, Bo, 2007. "From macro to micro: The health of Swedish lone mothers during changing economic and social circumstances," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(12), pages 2474-2488, December.
    2. Fritzell, Sara & Burstrom, Bo, 2006. "Economic strain and self-rated health among lone and couple mothers in Sweden during the 1990s compared to the 1980s," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(2-3), pages 253-264, December.
    3. Stefanie Sperlich & Sonja Arnhold-Kerri & Siegfried Geyer, 2011. "What accounts for depressive symptoms among mothers? The impact of socioeconomic status, family structure and psychosocial stress," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 56(4), pages 385-396, August.
    4. Teresa Castro Martín, 2010. "Single motherhood and low birthweight in Spain," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 22(27), pages 863-890.
    5. Dahlin, Johanna & Härkönen, Juho, 2013. "Cross-national differences in the gender gap in subjective health in Europe: Does country-level gender equality matter?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 24-28.
    6. Jean Woo & Ruth Chan & Jason Leung & Moses Wong, 2010. "Relative Contributions of Geographic, Socioeconomic, and Lifestyle Factors to Quality of Life, Frailty, and Mortality in Elderly," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(1), pages 1-11, January.
    7. Aitken, Zoe & Garrett, Cameryn C. & Hewitt, Belinda & Keogh, Louise & Hocking, Jane S. & Kavanagh, Anne M., 2015. "The maternal health outcomes of paid maternity leave: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 32-41.
    8. Chun, Heeran & Khang, Young-Ho & Kim, Il-Ho & Cho, Sung-Il, 2008. "Explaining gender differences in ill-health in South Korea: The roles of socio-structural, psychosocial, and behavioral factors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(6), pages 988-1001, September.
    9. Petra Rattay & Elena von der Lippe, 2020. "Association between Living with Children and the Health and Health Behavior of Women and Men. Are There Differences by Age? Results of the “German Health Update” (GEDA) Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-19, May.
    10. Patricia Gómez-Costilla & Carmen García-Prieto & Noelia Somarriba-Arechavala, 2022. "Aging and Gender Health Gap: A Multilevel Analysis for 17 European Countries," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 1051-1069, April.
    11. Anu Molarius & Alexandra Metsini, 2021. "Domestic Work, Self-Reported Diagnosed Depression and Related Costs among Women and Men—Results from a Population-Based Study in Sweden," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(18), pages 1-11, September.
    12. McMunn, Anne & Bartley, Mel & Kuh, Diana, 2006. "Women's health in mid-life: Life course social roles and agency as quality," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 1561-1572, September.
    13. Olsen, Karen M. & Dahl, Svenn-Åge, 2007. "Health differences between European countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(8), pages 1665-1678, April.
    14. Rebecca E Lacey & Meena Kumari & Amanda Sacker & Mai Stafford & Diana Kuh & Anne McMunn, 2016. "Work-Family Life Courses and Metabolic Markers in the MRC National Survey of Health and Development," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-13, August.
    15. Canivet, Catarina & Östergren, Per-Olof & Lindeberg, Sara I. & Choi, BongKyoo & Karasek, Robert & Moghaddassi, Mahnaz & Isacsson, Sven-Olof, 2010. "Conflict between the work and family domains and exhaustion among vocationally active men and women," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(8), pages 1237-1245, April.
    16. Sperlich, Stefanie & Geyer, Siegfried, 2015. "The mediating effect of effort-reward imbalance in household and family work on the relationship between education and women's health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 58-65.
    17. Paradis, Catherine, 2011. "Parenthood, drinking locations and heavy drinking," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 72(8), pages 1258-1265, April.
    18. Guallar-Castillón, Pilar & Redondo Sendino, Áurea & Banegas, José R. & López-García, Esther & Rodríguez-Artalejo, Fernando, 2005. "Differences in quality of life between women and men in the older population of Spain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(6), pages 1229-1240, March.
    19. Wiebke Schmitz & L. Naegele & F. Frerichs & L. Ellwardt, 2023. "Gendered late working life trajectories, family history and welfare regimes: evidence from SHARELIFE," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 1-15, December.
    20. Dana Hamplová, 2019. "Does Work Make Mothers Happy?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 471-497, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:68:y:2009:i:7:p:1263-1270. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.