Alconomics: Alcohol Consumption in the US and Russia - Case Study Example

1. Introduction In US and Russia, the issue of consumption and abuse of alcohol has been a matter of deep public concern for the past two decades. In US, many state governments as well as federal governments increased their excise taxes on alcohol by 1980s. In addition, the federal governments have been intensifying their efforts in encouraging the manufacturers to place caution labels on alcohol containers. Certain American states have also created laws that stipulate the legal minimum drinking age, among many other restrictions. The establishment of new policies on consumption of alcohol has, for example, been motivated by the need to reduce its economic cost. In US, the alcohol was estimated to have cost the economy a whopping $98.6 billion in 1990 alone (Rice et al., 1990). Although it has been a subject of controversy, critics of alcohol abuse have attributed a substantial reduction in economic productivity and earnings to excessive alcohol abuse (Harwood et al., 1984). This significant cost of alcohol use and its regular use in policy discussions brings up the need to study its socioeconomic cost. Furthermore, in respect to policy issues, alcohol consumption can be associated with health and socioeconomic status, stimulating interesting queries from different fields of applied microeconomics. This paper will utilize data collected from young adults from US and Russia, with the aim of examining the manner in which alcohol consumption affects labor supply, earnings, and marriage. Previous studies have revealed that personality and family background variables have significant impacts on socioeconomic status and alcohol problems. The primary goal of the study is to establish whether the new information that was collected affirms most of the assertions that are pointed out in policy debates regarding the impacts of alcohol consumption. 2. Data research and methods The data was collected by the help of questionnaires, which were administered by hand delivery to the respective respondents, with the help of research assistants. The participants came from five Universities undergraduates selected from each country (US and Russia). Before the students were administered with the questionnaires, they were explained the importance of the study and instructed how to fill them accordingly. Also, no participant was given the questionnaire before an informed consent was obtained from them. The research was conducted in two turns, the first one in 2010 and a follow-up study conducted in 2011. The purpose of choosing two periods that are far apart was to enable determination of the effect of passage of time, on our study variables. The major tests that were conducted include logistic modeling and Chi-square, using SPSS. To evaluate adjusted relationships between the independent and dependent variables, a multivariate analyses and logistic regression was performed. To determine the statistical significance, the study used 95% confidence level. A group of trained research assistants were selected to help in the data collection, which was conducted through a face-to-face interview that lasted for about five hours. Standardized questionnaires were used as the instruments in the process of data collection. The analyses that is presented in this paper includes a total of 207 Russians and 279 US male alcohol consumers. The study is based on weighted data, which controls for the oversampling of non-response and for heavier drinkers as well as the probability of inclusion. Measures The measures included problems associated with alcohol consumption. These problems were broken into two categories including alcohol reliance symptoms and drinking repercussions. Alcohol reliance symptoms is a set of behaviors that are associated with alcoholism; whilst drinking repercussions are problems that emanate from drinking such as legal, work, family relatives, financial and health problems (Hilton, 1991). Alcohol-related issues were presented through dummy variables such as 1 = yes, and 0 = no. The socioeconomic status was also studied. This variable incorporated scales of employment status, social class, household income, occupation status, and education status, which were summed and rated on a scale that ranged from 2-18, whereby higher scores represented higher social class status. The bivariate analysis examined the socio classes, which are categorized in a dichotomous classes (2.8 – lower classes; 8-18 = higher classes). On the other hand, the measures that are based on composite socio-economic status were used to represent the heterogeneity of groups. Apparently, poverty was fairly correlated with social class (r = - 28). The respondents were asked to state their country of origin in order to assess country variable. Marital status was coded in such a way to distinguish the married from divorced, separated, and windowed or those who have never been married. Additionally, age was captured as a continuous variable. The scale that was used to rank the rate of consumption of alcohol was borrowed from Hilton (1991). 3. The Sample This study is based on a survey that was conducted in 2010 with the aim of examining the changes in the patterns and problems of US and Russian adult students. In this study, a total of 194 Russians and 177 Americans participated in the interview. To be included, the participant must have reached 18 years of age. A multistage area probability procedure was used to select the participants living in the two countries. In 2011, a total of 115 Russians and 116 Americans who had participated in the 2010 interview were selected for a follow up interview. A total of five respondents that exhibited a high level of alcohol addiction were selected for a follow-up program. In this case, 55 Russian and 62 Americans were selected for the follow-up. The response rate for the Russians was 68% while that for the Americans was 71%. 4. Findings Bivariate analysis The extent to which each country was associated with dependent and the independent variables was tested through the bivariate analysis, which used chi-square. Russians and US American men significantly differed in respect to a variety of demographic characteristics (Table 1). From these results, the Russians are twice expected to fall in the lower classes than the US Americans and four times expected to dwell in areas stricken with poverty. The US American men were older than the Russian men, as revealed by the mean of their ages. Both US Americans and Russians were more likely to practice Protestantism, while Russian were less likely to get married compared to their US counterparts. Variable Russians (n=207) Us Americans (n=279) P Value For Country Age (Mean) 43 45 0.007 Marital Status (%) Married 53 72 0.001 Not Married 45 26 0.001 Employed (%) Employed 69 75 0.425 Unemployed 31 25 0.326 Religion (%) Catholic 10 23 0.002 Protestants 65 51 0.001 Jewish 2 4 0.001 Other 21 20 Area Poverty (%) Less Than 20% Below Poverty 50 91 0.001 Equal Or More Than 20% Below Poverty 50 13 0.001 Opinions about the suitability of Social Drinking (Mean) 5.19 5.76 0.000 Opinions about the suitability of Non-Social Drinking (Mean) 0.61 1.00 0.000 Social Class (%) Lower 50 28 0.001 Higher 48 72 0.001 Number Of Alcohol Drinks Per Month 69.96 46.23 0.032 Repercussions Of Alcohol Drinking (Mean) 1.79 0.89 0.029 Reliance Symptoms (Mean) 1.08 0.61 0.001 All Problems (Mean) 1.85 0.96 0.001 Table 1: alcohol and demographic variables by country Russian men exhibited a more conservative nonsocial and social norms compared to their US counterparts. However, the Russian men showed a higher mean of drinks per month, alcohol reliance symptoms, and drinking repercussions. Multivariate analysis Poison regression was used to study the relationships between socio-economic variables within each of the two countries. In this case, the area poverty was taken as a continuous variable. Generally, the repercussions of drinking and alcohol reliance symptoms were predicted in a similar manner and, therefore, Table 2 presents the total problems only. The age, social class, and religious preference were negatively related to alcohol reliance symptoms and drinking repercussions. On the other hand, alcohol consumption and social drinking were positively correlated to alcohol reliance symptoms and drinking consequences. The relationship between different countries was a two way interaction between area poverty and the problems associated with alcohol (Table 2). The Russian men living in areas with poverty exhibited higher alcohol related problems than their US counterparts. The men in the higher economic social classes did not exhibit differences between the two countries. For instance, as area poverty goes up, the repercussions of drinking decreases for the US Americans and goes up for the Russians. The overall problems model explained 34% of the variance, which was represented by the R squared. The interaction between the overall models was studied through the analysis of the differences between the two countries. For example, the mean of all the problems emanating from alcohol adjusted for covariates by dichotomized area poverty was calculated in the first analysis. Comparison of Russians with US Americans living in areas stricken by poverty shows that the mean numbers of problems related to alcohol were 1.56±0.34 and 0.55±0.37, respectively. However, for Russians and US Americans living in areas that are less stricken by poverty, the equivalent means were closer to each other; that is, 1.37±0.05 and 0.87±0.17, respectively. Therefore, we can conclude that the country-specific analysis holds up the findings examined in the full model. variable All problems (R2 = 3472) Standardized coefficient (±SE) Constant 0.7790±0.5126 Country (US vs. Russia) -0.1420±0.1349 Age -0.3168±0.0576 Marital status (Unmarried vs. married) -0.0427±0.0789 Religion (Protestant vs.) catholic -0.89±0.21 Jewish -1.01±0.65 Other 0.015±0.165 Employed (Unemployed vs. employed) -0.075±0.079 Social class score -0.53±0.073 Area poverty (% below poverty) -0.6389±0.175 Less Than 20% Below Poverty 0.25±0.06 Equal Or More Than 20% Below Poverty 0.025±0.043 Number of alcohol consumed per month 0.19±0.018 Country * area poverty (US low poverty vs. Russia, high poverty) 0.68±0.191 Table 2: Poisson regression coefficients for reliance models and drinking repercussions Hypothesis testing Hypothesis 1: H0: With respect to problems related with alcohol, the area poverty affects the people from US and Russia the same way. HA: With respect to problems related with alcohol, the area poverty affects the people from US and Russia differently. To test this hypothesis, the estimates of the effect of area poverty in each of the ethnic group are analyzed. For the purpose of this analysis, dichotomous variable is used to code the area poverty. Living in the areas with low level of income had a greater impact on Russians than on US Americas, which supports our alternate hypothesis. Hypothesis 2 H0: there is no difference of alcohol associated problems, between Russia and US, in respect to the men who earning high income. HA: there is a difference of alcohol associated problems, between Russia and US, in respect to the men who earning high income. The results show that there were no inter-country differences among the men who earn high income, supporting the null hypothesis. Hypothesis 3 H0: the Russian men who reported problems related to alcohol and who lived in impoverished neighborhoods were not likely to earn low income than their US counterparts living in similar conditions. H0: Russian men who reported problems related to alcohol and who lived in impoverished neighborhoods were significantly more likely to earn low income than their US counterparts living in similar conditions. The results supports the alternate hypothesis that Russian men who reported problems related to alcohol and who lived in impoverished neighborhoods were significantly more likely to earn low income than their US counterparts living in similar conditions (p Read More