WOMEN, ALCOHOL AND WORK - INTERACTIONS OF GENDER, ETHNICITY AND OCCUPATIONAL CULTURE

Patterns of alcohol use are affected by culture and history and intert wined with the rhythms of work life. The 20th century economic shift t oward industrial and service jobs coupled with the increasing presence of women in the workplace has revolutionized U.S. women's domestic an d public roles [1], and these changes have impacted their drinking beh avior [2]. In addition, in a multicultural society like the United Sta tes, subcultures, ethnic groups, socioeconomic classes, and even job c ategories have their own sets of gendered drinking norms. Patterns of alcohol use among women can be better understood with consideration of intricate interactions among gender, ethnicity, class, employment, an d alcohol consumption. Stepping up to the need to learn more about the se factors, we have reviewed literature about ethnic, class, occupatio nal, and gender influences on women's workplace-related drinking. This report on that review will show both the complexity of the phenomenon and the inconsistent, incomplete nature of existing information, as w ell as pointing out directions for future research. We begin with a ge neral discussion of women and workplace drinking. Copyright (C) 1996 P ublished by Elsevier Science Ltd.