It’s probably not hard to believe that on average men drink more alcohol (beer, wine, cocktails) than women do.
But over three times as much?
To find out, we went through the World Health Organization’s database. It was truly eye-opening!
Here’s what we found, starting with the United States!
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In the United States, it absolutely is true … men actually drink 3.5 times as much as women do.
Converting the data (which is in liters of ethanol per person), American men drink about 844 alcoholic drinks per year vs. 242 for women.
Put another way, men on average drink well over two drinks a day vs. well under a drink a day for women.
Let’s see about the rest of the world…
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In Canada, the men drink slightly more than the men in the U.S. and the women drink about the same.
So in Canada, the ratio of men drinks to women drinks is 3.6.
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Russia has a vodka-drinking reputation, and indeed the men in Russia drink a bit more than men in the U.S.
However, the women drink very slightly less than in the U.S.
The ratio in Russia is a whopping 4.3 drinks for men vs. women!
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As we found out, the drunkest country on earth is Romania.
The average person there drinks 957 drinks per year, with the men at an unbelievable 1,536 and the women at 422.
That means the men drink more than four drinks a day and the women also drink more than a drink a day.
That said, the ratio for men vs. women here is still similar to the U.S. and Canada at 3.6.
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We went through the data, line by line, and we couldn’t find one country where the women outdrink the men.
We did find some countries where the drinking in general is so low that the men and women both hover just above zero … for example, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
Let’s keep going with some other countries we were curious about…
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In the land of Octoberfest, German men drink 1,080 alcoholic drinks a year!
But the women keep pace enough where the ratio of men’s drinks to women’s drinks is the same as in the United States, 3.5.
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In the Land Down Under, the ratio isn’t upside down.
The men booze 3.3 times as much as the women.
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France’s numbers are similar to Germany’s.
The men drink 1,013 beers, wines, and cocktails per year while the women drink 287.
The ratio? Yup, 3.5 again!
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Based on the WHO data, drinking alcohol isn’t quite as prevalent as in the Western countries we’ve seen.
A typical Chinese man consumes 512 drinks a year vs. 129 for a Chinese woman.
That’s good for a 4-to-1 ratio, though.
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In Japan, both the men and the women drink a bit more alcohol than their Chinese counterparts, but still less than in the West.
Still, the ratio of men’s alcohol consumption to that of women is 3.7.
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India drinks less than Japan or China, but the ratio is notable because Indian men drink 5.1 times as much as Indian women!
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Yes, it’s true!
In the U.S., the number’s 3.5 drinks for a man for every drink for a woman.
And we see similar numbers for many countries around the world!
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