Why women are likely to drink more than men under lockdown

Oh do we not just love our incredible multitudes of studies.

So the world, except Sweden, went into lockdown and so people were in basically a public prison.

Except in many countries, except South Africa (legally at least), people could still consume alcohol. Like DJ Stavo said, ‘I ain’t doing this shit sober’. This was after the government of Zimbabwe may or may not have tried to ban alcohol sales.

So the first thing. A The Australian National University (ANU) survey found that people drank more by as much as 20% during lockdown than normal times. By the way, people under-report their drinking. We have been shamed that way.

Outside that, many were drinking at irregular times. Since you were not leaving home, one could be excused for having a beer at 10am in the morning. One of the main reasons is stress and having nowhere to escape to where no alcohol is available, eg work.

But the study showed that women who had extra care-giver duties had more alcohol.

“Additional stress was on females who maintained their paid work hours, but on top on that increased their unpaid work,” lead researcher Nicholas Biddle said.

And the breakdown was interesting.

Women aged between 35 and 44 with a university education were 1.3 times more likely to increase their drinking than men. It is not surprising because this is the age group which will likely have young children at home and be actively involved at work as well.

As to whether this sticks remains to be seen as the world opens up again.

Some businesses have eased in workers back into the office while a few have gone full metal jacket into regular business.

Whether visits to the pub, when that becomes legal again, will be legit lit, remains to be seen.

So if you found yourself having more of a tipple than usual, don’t judge yourself.