Abstract
This paper provides a comparison of the drinking patterns of members of the 1958
British Birth Cohort at age 33 in 1991 and members of the 1970 British Birth Cohort
at age 34 in 2004. In particular the focus is on the relationships between social class,
gender and drinking behaviour and how these may have changed over time. In
addition we exploit the detailed information available in the cohort studies about the
kinds of alcohol that individuals drink to provide a description of how this varies
between the two cohorts born twelve years apart. The paper also provides detailed
descriptive analyses of the links between frequency of drinking and the number of
units drunk for both cohorts. Results suggest that although the 1970 cohort report
drinking more frequently than the 1958 cohort did at a similar age, there is only a
modest increase in the average number of units of alcohol consumed per week for
women and no increase for men. The paper also highlights some possible problems
with data on alcohol consumption collected in the 2000 sweep of NCDS and BCS70
and concludes by making some comparisons between data collected in the cohort
studies and data collected in the General Household Survey.
Introduction
Alcohol consumption, and in particular alcohol misuse, are major policy concerns.
While over half of all violent crime is related to drink, alcohol-related diseases are
reported to be costing the NHS approximately £1.7 billion each year (Prime Minister’s
Strategy Unit alcohol harm reduction project 2004). Since the 1970s alcohol
consumption has increased dramatically partly due to the more widespread
availability of alcohol and growing affluence and also because of reductions in the
relative costs of alcohol. Alcoholic liver disease has become a major public health
concern and the incidence of cirrhosis of the liver has increased ten-fold over the
past three decades (Department of Health 2001).
In March 2007 Ian Gilmore of the Royal College of Physicians argued that the
government’s alcohol awareness campaigns focus too much on young binge drinkers.
He stressed that older people drinking at home were also at risk of the severe health
consequences linked to high alcohol consumption. A Mintel Survey suggested that
more adults drink at home in Britain than in other European countries. Whereas 74.4%
of adults in the UK report drinking at home this compares with 66% in France, 64.3% in
Germany and 44.5% in Spain.
This paper uses data from the 1958 and 1970 British Birth Cohort studies to explore the
ways that drinking behaviour has changed over time and how it varies by gender and
social class. In particular the focus is on the number of units of alcohol that cohort
members report drinking each week, the reported frequency of drinking alcohol, and the
types of alcohol consumed. The paper is intended as a descriptive working paper that
can be used as a foundation by other researchers examining the links between reported
alcohol consumption and health outcomes within the cohorts.
One of the main advantages of having comparable longitudinal data on the alcohol
consumption of two separate cohorts is that it is possible to examine the extent to which
overall increases in alcohol consumption may be due to more recent cohorts of
individuals drinking more than previous cohorts, or to an increase in alcohol