Who Drinks? A Global Snapshot of Alcohol Use

Have you ever wondered whether drinking habits are the same everywhere, or if they change depending on who you are and where you live? This study looked at weekly alcohol use in over 200,000 adults across 22 countries, from Australia to Egypt to Japan to Brazil. The researchers asked a simple question: how many alcoholic drinks did you have in the past week?

The decision to drink is not just a personal choice but is woven into the fabric of our cultures and social lives.

Then they compared the answers across age, gender, marital status, education, job, immigration, and how often people attend religious services. What they found was striking. Men reported almost twice as many drinks per week as women. People in their 50s drank the most, while drinking tapered off in older age.

People who were divorced, separated, or living with a partner tended to drink more than married people. Those with more education and steady jobs also reported more drinking. One of the clearest patterns involved religion: the more often someone attended religious services, the less alcohol they tended to drink. At the country level, the differences were huge. Australia, the UK, Germany, Spain, and Japan topped the list, while Egypt, Indonesia, and India sat at the very bottom.

Countries with larger Muslim populations and stronger religious participation generally reported less drinking. But here's a twist: when researchers looked only at people who do drink, some low-consumption countries like Türkiye and Tanzania jumped higher in the rankings. That means even where few people drink, those who do may drink quite a lot. This study paints a vivid picture of how culture, faith, age, and life circumstances all weave together to shape something as personal as a weekly drink.