Map by Sloshspot via NYT Economix.
This entry was posted on Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 8:19 am and is filed under Creative Class Consumption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
March 9th, 2009 at 8:56 am
It would be interesting to contrast this with a map of alcohol consumption per capita, i.e. ask the question whether there’s an association between consumption and restriction.
My guess is that it would be positive, i.e. alcohol consumption is higher, not lower, in countries with higher legal ages. I’m thinking the arguing will start when the focus changes from correlation to causality!
March 9th, 2009 at 9:04 am
It would also be interesting to compare “northern Europe” or “Anglo Saxon” with “Mediterranean”, as we’re constantly told in the press that the Greeks and Italians just start philosophising after a campari or two, whilst those descended from vikings are all primed to go pillaging after a couple of pints.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:48 am
The map doesn’t reflect that some Canadian provinces (Quebec, Manitoba, and Alberta) have a legal drinking age of 18. Although there are cultural differences, there’s plenty of opportunity to study how the drinking age might relate to binge drinking, DUIs, etc.
I’ve always thought the lower drinking age had a lot to do with how few fraternities and sororities there are at Canadian universities. The “greek system” strikes me as an ingenious way of getting alcohol into the hands of younger students.
March 9th, 2009 at 10:34 am
“The “greek system” strikes me as an ingenious way of getting alcohol into the hands of younger students.”
My guess, not exactly a giant leap, also based on personal experience while in college, was that’s pretty much the means many underage folks in the U.S. get their hands on alcohol. I’ve wondered if one factor behind “binge drinking” may be the ability to access unlimited quantities at a low cost. As I recall, at a typical party you would pay a few dollars or so for a plastic cup to drink as much beer (most typically) as you can drink, or lasts until the keg(s) run out. In NYC, the steep tax on cigarettes has been one factor for controlling use, yet I also think alcohol is a somewhat different animal.
Working to just shut down these parties would likely not do much good, as some other system of access would likely prop up, given the desire for socialization and social anxiety which alcohol clearly lowers, amongst peers at such an age, as well other factors. Unless one can somehow create significant stigma for acting drunk across the board in this age group (not likely I suspect) social control for this age group, especially, often breeds the exact opposite response in desire. Young people are going to make poor decisions because it’s part of identity development, which leads to the next point.
For young people in college, I think this is often their feeling that this is my “last time to party” before I get old and have to get “serious.” To go with Ronan’s comments, I’ve suspected that societies with the strongest “work cultures” might have increased risk of “abuse” of any chemically dependent substance or arguably addictive (like say rampant consumption of any product to take one’s mind off of stress, period).
So, the U.S., England, India, and some East Asian nations have always come across to me as more likely to engage in such behavior than others who don’t. In fairness, I suspect cross correlating other variables could show other factors to have significance (such as cold climates/long winters, or something like that). The saying goes that for visitors to Amsterdam, those that typically go the most “crazy” are young Americans and English. Although England allows for more leisure time than the U.S., as Dr. Florida has pointed out before (and I noticed this past summer, most recently), I believe, London and New York possess some cultural similarities. I can’t help but notice that both are epicenters of finance, and Protest work ethic approach to lifestyle/work, and expensive to live.
Maybe if we also had a less car oriented culture the age would still be 18, until MADD lobbied to change the laws.
March 9th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Best title for a blog entry yet.
March 9th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Back in the day (when I was an underage drinker going to pubs with faked ID), Canada’s legal age was 18 across the board. At some point in the 80s (while I was in the US), that changed to 19 (with the exceptions mentioned by Matt L.).
I wonder why Canada did that? As far as I can tell, public drunkenness is a bigger problem today than it was earlier – which isn’t to say there’s a correlation between restrictive age limits and binge drinking/ public disorder. But you have to wonder…
March 10th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Funny how none of us commented on what might have been the intent here (perhaps) in how many of the least tolerant nations are almost all suffering the greatest economic and/or political problems.
Not sure if this is correlation or causality, but fun to think about.