This is what U.S. Researchers found after analyzing several studies with a total of more than 5,000 participants.
Married women also consume more drinks than those who have been divorced for a long time or recently widowed. One of the reasons is that many had lived with a man who drank more alcohol than they did, the researchers, led by corinne reczek of the university of cincinnati, suggest. They wanted to present their results at the 107. American sociological association (asa) to present findings at its meeting in denver, which ends on monday.
Marriage, on the other hand, increases alcohol consumption in men. "They drink the fewest drinks compared to singles, divorced and widowed men," says a press release from the professional society. The study is based on data from the wisconsin longitudinal study (WLS) and interviews from earlier studies. For the WLS, 2439 men and 2866 women were interviewed a total of four times between 1957 and 2004. Two other small studies include a total of 120 interviews from 2003 to 2010. Researchers estimated alcohol consumption based on the number of drinks the subjects had drunk in a month.
But they also think: men drink more during marriage and have serious alcohol problems more often than women do. It seems to be particularly dangerous after divorces, when both sides drown their sorrow in alcohol. Men drink much more shortly after than during marriage. And divorced and separated women are much more likely to become addicted to alcohol than married women.
Researchers from several U.S. Universities were involved in the study. Concrete figures on alcohol consumption were not given by the professional association in its communication.