ARA - The Industry Association for Responsible Alcohol Use: Legal Drinking Age

The ARA’s mission is to reduce alcohol-related harm through combating the misuse and abuse of alcohol beverages and promoting only their responsible use.

Legal Drinking Age

Although youth drinking is legally forbidden in most countries, underage drinking is a serious problem in many parts of the world. Fortunately, significant progress has been made in some regions in reducing underage drinking. However, much more remains to be done.

Societies Vary in Their Laws, Customs, and Practices Regarding Youth Drinking

There is no international consensus on the age at which alcohol consumption becomes appropriate, and the legal age at which individuals may consume or purchase beverage alcohol products varies around the world. The most common minimum legal drinking age is 18. But some countries, including China, Georgia, Lithuania, and Malta, have no minimum drinking age. Other countries, including the U.S., Indonesia, Egypt, and Palau, have set the minimum drinking age at 21.

Some countries, such as Germany, have different minimum ages depending on the type of beverage alcohol product. In some countries, the minimum legal drinking age corresponds to the age of majority, while in others it does not. Most legal drinking age legislation around the world does not regulate drinking in the home with parental permission and supervision.
Despite legal drinking age laws, in some cultures young people are permitted (or even encouraged) to drink alcohol with family members in connection with cultural or religious rituals and family events. Countries differ widely in the social role alcohol plays in family life.

In certain European countries, including France and other Mediterranean countries, it is not unusual for individuals under the legal drinking age to drink alcohol in moderate amounts in connection with family celebrations.1 In other regions, most notably Muslim areas of the world, alcohol consumption, even by adults, is strictly forbidden.
The kind of beverage alcohol products young people drink and how they obtain those products also varies around the world. Surveys in the U.S. have shown that many adolescents get beverage alcohol from their parents’home or from other persons above the legal drinking age.2 In some developing countries in Africa and the Indian subcontinent, non-commercial, traditional alcohol constitutes a majority of the alcohol consumed.3 4

What Causes Young People to Drink Alcohol?

Illegal underage drinking is just one of the many risk-taking behaviors engaged in by adolescents. Inappropriate drinking by young people is not a new phenomenon, and has been documented through recorded history. There is considerable debate in the scientific community about why young people drink and what influences their drinking patterns. The causes of underage drinking are complex and multi-faceted. 2
Parental modeling matters. Research shows that parenting style and parental influence (including parental drinking habits) play a very prominent role in shaping youth drinking behavior.5 In large part, maturing youth emulate the drinking patterns they see at home.

The scientific evidence also is clear that young people who have a close, supportive relationship with their parents –with adequate parental monitoring and communication –are less likely to experience problems with alcohol than those from families that are not intact and where parental supervision is lacking.6 7 8
Peer approval also plays a very important role in shaping youth drinking habits.9 10 11 If a young person spends time with others her age who do not drink alcohol, she is very unlikely to do so.
Other factors, including religiosity, appear to have a protective effect on young people’s drinking.12 13

Drinking Patterns

The most constant finding on youth drinking is an increase in consumption with age, whether it is regular consumption or so-called “binge drinking”(generally defined as having five or more drinks in a row). Between ages 11 and 19, alcohol consumption increases in all countries. 14 15

However, relatively few young adolescents report regular use of alcohol, and even fewer report heavy drinking episodes. The highest proportion of adolescents who report having an early experience of drunkenness is found in high-prevalence drinking areas such as the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon countries.16
Another finding seen across different cultures is that the vast majority of youthful excessive drinking does not carry into adulthood. Data from the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that heavy or “binge”drinking among young people in the U.S. declines after age 21. In New Zealand, a survey likewise found that 21-year-olds consumed the highest amount of alcohol per drinking occasion, declining thereafter.17
Studies from different countries and different time periods have shown that males tend to drink more alcohol than females. Although the differences in male and female underage consumption appear to be narrowing in some recent studies, particularly in the U.S.,18 a gender gap still exists in the prevalence and frequency of alcohol consumption, including in Europe.19

Youth Drinking: United States and Canada

In the United States, statistics show that most young people report trying alcohol before reaching the legal drinking age of 21. However, drinking by those under age 21 is not universal, and trends over the past three decades show positive declines in underage drinking. According to the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future Survey (MTF), the prevalence of drinking among high school students peaked in the late 1970s and then decreased throughout the 1980s.

In the most recent December 2005 MTF Survey it was reported that “[t]he use of alcoholic beverages has generally been in decline among American teens for the last several years, and that decline continued in all three grades in 2005.” In this 2005 MTF report, 17% of the 8th graders indicated drinking once or more in the prior 30 days, as did 33% of the 10th graders, and 47% (or less than half) of the 12th graders.

A clear majority of all young people in the MTF study indicated that they were not regular drinkers. Similarly, according to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health, 82% of adolescents in the U.S. (age 12-17) do not drink, and 71% of minors (age 12-20) do not drink. In addition, 94% of minors in that 2004 survey indicated that they were not heavy drinkers.
Regarding “binge drinking”(defined as having five or more drinks in a row once in the prior two weeks), the 2005 MTF data show that such drinking patterns continued to decline in 2005, with about a 1% decline in all three grades measured. Importantly, the 2005 MTF data shows a rise at all grade levels in perceived risk of, and disapproval for, such drinking.
Researchers also have confirmed decreases in youth drinking in the U.S. over time. For example, one study of 12th grade students found that daily drinking decreased by about 60% percent between 1975 and 1993.20 A study of students in grades 7 to 13 in Ontario, Canada found similar declines between 1977 and 1995 in most indicators of youth drinking.21 Recently, the 2005 “American Freshman Survey” sponsored by the University of California –Los Angeles and the American Council on Education reported that the percentage of college freshmen who reported drinking beer frequently or occasionally is at the lowest level since the authors began tracking this statistic in 1966 –and it is 10% lower than in 2000 and down 41% since its peak in 1982.

Youth Drinking: Europe

The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) surveys alcohol, tobacco, and drug use in students ages 15 and 16 in 35 European countries. The most recent ESPAD data was collected in 2003. More than 100,000 students participated in the 2003 data collection. The 2003 ESPAD survey indicates that 83% of the students questioned reported drinking alcohol in the past 12 months, and 53% reported drunkenness during the past year.

The highest levels of regular drinking (alcohol consumption 40 or more times in lifetime) were reported in Denmark, Austria, the Czech Republic, Isle of Man, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom (43%-50%). With respect to Denmark and the United Kingdom, the rates reported in 2003 were down from what was reported in the ESPAD 1999 survey. The lowest rates of regular drinking were reported in Turkey (7%), Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Portugal (13%-15%).
Although the clear majority of youth in many ESPAD countries report some lifetime alcohol consumption, regular consumption is not typical. For example, when frequency of drinking 10 or more times in the past 30 days was examined, many countries reported that such frequency was very rare.

Proportions of 3% or less were reported in Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The number of students who reported drinking beer, wine, and spirits in the past 30 days varied considerably between countries.
Even in many ESPAD countries where youth experimentation with alcohol is fairly common, “binge drinking”only involves a minority of young people. The highest rates of such drinking were reported for Denmark, Ireland, Isle of Man, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland (24%-32%). Countries with the lowest rates were Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Romania, and Turkey (5%-11%). Youth Drinking: Other Regions
There is a lack of data on youth drinking in many other areas of the world, and more research is clearly needed in many regions. The data that do exist reflect the importance of the particular alcohol-related standards and customs in different cultures.
Youth drinking rates in Australia and New Zealand are reportedly similar to Northern European countries.22 A 1996 Japanese survey of secondary school students found that 70% of senior high school students reported some experience with alcohol.23
Data on youth drinking for developing countries in Africa and other areas is scarce. One study of Nigerian youth indicated that only 16% of secondary students reported current alcohol consumption. 24 WHO has reported that, with respect to lifetime consumption measures, most developing countries have lower rates than those seen in the U.S.25 For example, the rates for 12-17 year-olds having consumed alcohol at least once has been reported as 35% in Brazil, 50% in Costa Rica, and 30% in South Africa. As noted above, lower drinking rates have generally been reported in Muslim regions of the world.

POLICY CONSIDERATIONS

Youth drinking is a multi-faceted, complex societal issue. The literature suggests that the primary influences on youths’ decisions about illegal underage drinking are parents and peers.
Addressing the problems caused by illegal underage drinking requires a concerted effort by many different parts of society, including parents and other adults, schools, the public health and medical communities, law enforcement, and the beverage alcohol industry.
There is no single strategy that will eliminate illegal underage drinking. The most effective strategies are restricting youth access to alcohol and targeted interventions that are specifically aimed at particular young people at risk.
Population-level attempts to control alcohol abuse through taxes and other such means will not solve the problems caused by underage drinking.