I feel like there was an anecdote in Dan Okrent's book about how thousands of middle or upper class people who voted for Prohibition were shocked to find out it applied to them - they had all figured it was only for poor people and they'd be able to continue drinking regularly.
That was definitely a thing! I'm currently reading 'Damon Runyon: A Life' by the late great Jimmy Breslin, and he gets into that a bit in there (Runyon coined the Roaring Twenties and was in the thick of it during Prohibition.) Also comes up in a bunch of other histories.
I haven't actually read Okrent's book ('Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition') but been meaning to for years. This comment prompted me to reserve it at the library, so I'm ON IT. Thanks Kaptain Krunk! For those curious: https://bookshop.org/a/14147/9780743277044
Should our pal Mr. Kristof ever care to dig into some actual data on this:
1. Columbia University researchers Sarah McKetta and Katherine Keyes analyzed National Health Interview Survey data from 2006-2018 and concluded that women’s binge drinking—defined as four or more drinks in one occasion, or roughly two hours—was concentrated among women at the highest levels of socioeconomic status. (True, this pattern is less pronounced for men.) They concluded that “women at all levels of SES [socioeconomic status] increased binge drinking, but increases were most pronounced among high SES women.”
2. According to Gallup polling, upper-income and highly educated Americans are more likely than other Americans to say they drink alcohol. Whereas eight in 10 adults in these socio-economic status groups say they drink, only about half of lower-income Americans and those with a high school diploma or less say they drink. And, Gallup notes: "While higher socio-economic status drinkers are more likely to say they have had an alcoholic drink more recently, they are not more likely than others to report overindulging in alcohol. There are no meaningful differences by income level in the percentage who say they sometimes drink more alcoholic beverages than they should."
While I don't feel comfortable coming down too hard on the side of "rich people are drunk all the time," it feels at least worth stating that there are increasing levels of alcohol consumption associated with higher socioeconomic status, and that the disease of alcoholism doesn't check your tax return.
Yeah you make really good points here Kate. The most significant one being, to me, that wealth simply isn't a good predictor of alcoholism or alcohol-related mortality, and to suggest otherwise as dearest Nicholas does—for his own benefit, no less—is both counter to the available scholarship and classist as hell.
The bit about binge-drinking being the most concentrated amongst high-SES women is interesting. Not that I'm a researcher but my first thought there was that men are probably much more likely to underreport than women on the matter given America/Western notions of alcohol, masculinity, and control. But I'm just spitballing here!
That could be a part of it! Obviously I think there are a confluence of factors here.
As part of some reporting I did around women and alcohol consumption, I put the issue to friend of Byliners/Rabobank analyst Bourcard Nesin, who last year produced a long report on women as alcohol consumers. He said: “Demographic groups that are seeing some of the fastest gains in alcohol consumption among women are those in high-profile jobs. As women have gotten more power in business and are responsible for more networking and business development and finance and being at the table or perhaps even deciding who’s at the table for these big decisions, their alcohol use is becoming part of that system.”
I think there's also a liberalization of moral strictures and a decline in religiosity that comes with college education that could be at play here too but I'll leave that to sociologists.
I feel like there was an anecdote in Dan Okrent's book about how thousands of middle or upper class people who voted for Prohibition were shocked to find out it applied to them - they had all figured it was only for poor people and they'd be able to continue drinking regularly.
That was definitely a thing! I'm currently reading 'Damon Runyon: A Life' by the late great Jimmy Breslin, and he gets into that a bit in there (Runyon coined the Roaring Twenties and was in the thick of it during Prohibition.) Also comes up in a bunch of other histories.
I haven't actually read Okrent's book ('Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition') but been meaning to for years. This comment prompted me to reserve it at the library, so I'm ON IT. Thanks Kaptain Krunk! For those curious: https://bookshop.org/a/14147/9780743277044
Should our pal Mr. Kristof ever care to dig into some actual data on this:
1. Columbia University researchers Sarah McKetta and Katherine Keyes analyzed National Health Interview Survey data from 2006-2018 and concluded that women’s binge drinking—defined as four or more drinks in one occasion, or roughly two hours—was concentrated among women at the highest levels of socioeconomic status. (True, this pattern is less pronounced for men.) They concluded that “women at all levels of SES [socioeconomic status] increased binge drinking, but increases were most pronounced among high SES women.”
2. According to Gallup polling, upper-income and highly educated Americans are more likely than other Americans to say they drink alcohol. Whereas eight in 10 adults in these socio-economic status groups say they drink, only about half of lower-income Americans and those with a high school diploma or less say they drink. And, Gallup notes: "While higher socio-economic status drinkers are more likely to say they have had an alcoholic drink more recently, they are not more likely than others to report overindulging in alcohol. There are no meaningful differences by income level in the percentage who say they sometimes drink more alcoholic beverages than they should."
While I don't feel comfortable coming down too hard on the side of "rich people are drunk all the time," it feels at least worth stating that there are increasing levels of alcohol consumption associated with higher socioeconomic status, and that the disease of alcoholism doesn't check your tax return.
Yeah you make really good points here Kate. The most significant one being, to me, that wealth simply isn't a good predictor of alcoholism or alcohol-related mortality, and to suggest otherwise as dearest Nicholas does—for his own benefit, no less—is both counter to the available scholarship and classist as hell.
The bit about binge-drinking being the most concentrated amongst high-SES women is interesting. Not that I'm a researcher but my first thought there was that men are probably much more likely to underreport than women on the matter given America/Western notions of alcohol, masculinity, and control. But I'm just spitballing here!
That could be a part of it! Obviously I think there are a confluence of factors here.
As part of some reporting I did around women and alcohol consumption, I put the issue to friend of Byliners/Rabobank analyst Bourcard Nesin, who last year produced a long report on women as alcohol consumers. He said: “Demographic groups that are seeing some of the fastest gains in alcohol consumption among women are those in high-profile jobs. As women have gotten more power in business and are responsible for more networking and business development and finance and being at the table or perhaps even deciding who’s at the table for these big decisions, their alcohol use is becoming part of that system.”
I think there's also a liberalization of moral strictures and a decline in religiosity that comes with college education that could be at play here too but I'll leave that to sociologists.
Yeah that all tracks. Fingers needs a resident sociologist!