Even though women generally consume less alcohol than men (Dawson and Archer, 1992) and have lower rates of alcoholism than men (Kessler et al., 1994), alcohol consumption among women has been increasing, particularly in young women (Mercer and Khavari, 1990; Wilsnack et al., 1994). A recent study confirmed that the gender gap in the U.S. is decreasing with respect to both alcohol consumption and alcohol use disorders (Keyes et al., 2008). Specifically, Keyes et al. (2008) found that among the youngest cohort of women, 16% reported a lifetime prevalence of frequent binge drinking compared to only 2% of the oldest cohort of women. Further, among the youngest cohort, the odds of men binge drinking was 2.66 times higher than for women, whereas in the oldest cohort, men were 10.55 times more likely to binge drink than women. Clearly alcohol consumption is increasing among women. Given that earlier studies showed that women progressed more rapidly to alcoholism (i.e. “telescoping”), despite drinking substantially less alcohol than men (Piazza et al., 1989; Ross, 1989), the rise in alcohol consumption among women is particularly concerning as it will likely further increase the prevalence of alcohol abuse and dependence in women.
