Who Drinks More…Married Men Or Married Women?

By Brittany Gatson

Do married men or married women drink more?

A new study finds that where drinking is concerned, marriage seems to be more beneficial to men than women: it reveals that compared to their single or divorced counterparts, married men tend to consume fewer alcoholic drinks, whereas married women tend to consume more.

Men are more likely than women to hit the bottle after a divorce, according to the survey into marriage and alcohol conducted by sociologists at four universities. The study was based on surveys of 5,000 men and women conducted over 47 years.

Lead researcher Corinne Reczek, professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati, said, “Stable marriage curbs men’s drinking yet is associated with a slightly higher level of alcohol use among women. Our findings suggest that being married to a man who is more likely to drink creates a new social environment that may promote drinking among women.”

Reczek added, “Some research suggests that men are more likely to cope with stressors in “externalizing” ways such as drinking more alcohol, possibly contributing to alcohol abuse or the disease of alcoholism. Women are more likely to cope in “internalizing” ways such as depression rather than alcohol abuse.

The study also looked into how drinking habits are affected when marriages end. The researchers found that while divorce causes men to drink more, women actually tend to go back to drinking less.

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