The Gender Difference in the Association Between Early Onset of Drinking and Problem Drinking Between the U.S. and Japan

ABSTRACT

Using comparable survey data from the GENACIS Project, collected from representative samples of people aged 20 to 70 years old in the U.S. (n = 2,598) and Japan (n = 1,734), this study examined, across these two diverse societies, the gender difference in the association between the early onset of drinking and the development of drinking problems. The results of this study suggest that there does not appear to be a cross-national causal relationship between the early onset of drinking and problem drinking because of significant country and gender variations in this association and because there is no association found among Japanese females. As hypothesized, the early onset of drinking predicted problem drinking among males more strongly than among females in both countries.

Notes

¹ It is not easy to measure the early onset of drinking based on the drinking law because the legal age of drinking differs in the U.S., where it is 21 years old, and in Japan, where it is 20 years old, and has changed over time and varied by state in the U.S. until the passage of the Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act in 1988.

² All twelve measures of problem drinking used for this study are past 12-months experiences, thus, irrespective of the current age, all respondents have the same 12-month-period opportunity to experience problem drinking.

³ The percentages are past-month prevalence among people aged 12 or older.

⁴ The percentages are past-month prevalence among people aged 12 or older.

⁵ The percentages are past-year prevalence among people aged 12 or older.

⁶ The percentages are past-year prevalence among people aged 12 or older.

⁷ The percentages are past-year prevalence among people aged 12 or older.

⁸ Though see a review of explanations for the lower alcohol consumption among Asian Americans compared to the national average in the U.S., which includes a biochemical explanation (Caetano, Clark, and Tam 1998).

⁹ The Japanese sample was limited to respondents who are between the ages of 20 and 70 years old, thus we also limited the U.S. sample to include the respondents in the same age range (excluded are 173 respondents who are younger than 20 years of age and 431 respondents are older than 70 years of age, constituted about 12.28% of the sample).

¹⁰ The median household income category for this study for the U.S. sample was $20,001 and for the Japanese sample was ¥76 million, calculated separately for each sample.

¹¹ The U.S. survey asked “About how old were you when you first started drinking alcoholic beverages, not including small tastes?” The Japanese survey asked “How old were you when you first began drinking, more than just a sip or a taste?”.

¹² For U.S. males, for instance, the equation becomes experiences of problem drinking = (2.329 + 0.955 + 2.219–3.139) + (−0.027–0.185–0.023 + 0.112) × age of first drink = 2.364–0.123 × age of first drink.

¹³ For U.S. males, for instance, the equation becomes Harmful effects of problem drinking = (3.230–2.631 + 1.154) + (−0.086 + 0.062) × Age of first drink = 1.753–0.024 × Age of first drink.

¹⁴ An attempt was made to include both observed variables of onset of drinking at once, but the model failed to converge.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Miyuki Fukushima Tedor

MIYUKI FUKUSHIMA TEDOR is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology, Anthropology, and Sociology at Cleveland State University. She received BAs in philosophy, psychology, and sociology, a MA in sociology, and a PhD in sociology, all from the University of Oklahoma. Her research interests include cross-national examination of theories of crime; gender and crime; juvenile delinquency; and drugs and alcohol use and crime.

Linda M. Quinn

LINDA M. QUINN is a Senior College Lecturer and Statistical Consultant in the Mathematics department at Cleveland State University since 2009. She has been involved in statistical applications and analyses of research studies since 1989. She has been a lead statistician at such institutions as the Cleveland Research Institute, Case Western Reserve University Department of Medicine, the program in Health Care Research at the Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, AcroMed Corporation, and American Greetings. She was an independent statistical consultant for over 20 years applying statistics across many disciplines. Her graduate studies were at Cleveland State University, Bowling Green State University, and Case Western Reserve University. She has MS degrees in statistics, computer science, and operations research and a doctorate in educational leadership and lifelong learning.

Sharon C. Wilsnack

SHARON CARLSON WILSNACK received her B.A. from Kansas State University, her M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University, and studied as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Freiburg, Federal Republic of Germany. She is presently Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Wilsnack’s background includes experience as a substance abuse therapist and treatment program director as well as in research and medical education. Sharon Wilsnack and Richard Wilsnack direct a 20-year longitudinal study of drinking behavior in U.S. women, and coordinate an international collaborative research project on gender and alcohol which involves researchers from more than 40 countries. Sharon Wilsnack is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. She served as a member of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee to Study Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, as a member of the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism/National Institutes of Health, and on numerous other boards and advisory groups concerned with alcohol abuse and women’s health. She was a member and panel chair of the NIAAA Task Force on College Drinking and a member of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment’s Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) Consensus Panel on Special Needs of Women in Substance Abuse Treatment.

THOMAS K. GREENFIELD, PhD directed the NIAAA-supported National Alcohol Research Center from 1999 to 2015, and continues as the scientific director of the Alcohol Research Group, of the Public Health Institute, in Emeryville, California. He is also core training faculty for the Clifford Attkisson Clinical Services Research Training Program in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF. He currently leads, with Kate Karriker-Jaffe, an R01 grant on alcohol’s harms to others (AHTO) among US adults, and with Sharon Wilsnack and Kim Bloomfield is beginning a new international AHTO grant that will examine how national policies are associated with these harms in high, low and middle income countries. He now serves on the NIH Community Influences on Health Behavior study section.

Richard W. Wilsnack

RICHARD W. WILSNACK, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Grand Forks, North Dakota, USA. He received a B.A. from Pomona College (Claremont, California), an M.Sc. (Econ.) from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University. His research interests include gender influences on alcohol consumption and related problems; cross-cultural patterns of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms; and longitudinal and retrospective research on drinking histories. Sharon Wilsnack and Richard Wilsnack have directed a 20-year national longitudinal study of alcohol use and abuse in U.S. women, and have coordinated the multinational GENACIS project, which includes comparable general population surveys of men’s and women’s alcohol use and alcohol-related problems in 38 countries on 5 continents. They are currently engaged in multinational research on alcohol-related harms to individuals other than the drinkers.

THOMAS K. GREENFIELD, PhD directed the NIAAA-supported National Alcohol Research Center from 1999 to 2015, and continues as the scientific director of the Alcohol Research Group, of the Public Health Institute, in Emeryville, California. He is also core training faculty for the Clifford Attkisson Clinical Services Research Training Program in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF. He currently leads, with Kate Karriker-Jaffe, an R01 grant on alcohol’s harms to others (AHTO) among US adults, and with Sharon Wilsnack and Kim Bloomfield is beginning a new international AHTO grant that will examine how national policies are associated with these harms in high, low and middle income countries. He now serves on the NIH Community Influences on Health Behavior study section.

Thomas K. Greenfield

THOMAS K. GREENFIELD, PhD directed the NIAAA-supported National Alcohol Research Center from 1999 to 2015, and continues as the scientific director of the Alcohol Research Group, of the Public Health Institute, in Emeryville, California. He is also core training faculty for the Clifford Attkisson Clinical Services Research Training Program in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF. He currently leads, with Kate Karriker-Jaffe, an R01 grant on alcohol’s harms to others (AHTO) among US adults, and with Sharon Wilsnack and Kim Bloomfield is beginning a new international AHTO grant that will examine how national policies are associated with these harms in high, low and middle income countries. He now serves on the NIH Community Influences on Health Behavior study section.