Alcohol and Alcoholism Advance Access originally published online on July 19, 2006
Alcohol and Alcoholism 2006 41(5):574-579; doi:10.1093/alcalc/agl051
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ABSTAINING FROM ALCOHOL AND LABOUR MARKET UNDERPERFORMANCE—HAVE WE FORGOTTEN THE ‘DRY’ ALCOHOLICS?
1 The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy, Lönnrotinkatu 4B, 00120 Helsinki, Finland, 2 Department of Mental Health and Alcohol Research, 3 Department of Health and Functional Capacity, National Public Health Institute, P.O. Box 33, FIN-00251 Helsinki, Finland, 4 Research Unit of Substance Abuse Medicine, University of Helsinki, Helsinki Finland and 5 The Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies. P.O. Box 220 FIN-00531 Helsinki, Finland
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed: Tel.: +358 9 6099 0269; Fax: +358 9 601 753; E-mail: edvard.johansson{at}etla.fi
(Received 3 April 2006; first review notified 8 June 2006; in revised form 12 June 2006; accepted 12 June 2006)
Aims: To investigate whether abstainers fare worse than non-abstainers on the labour market because a subset of the abstainers are ex-drinkers with alcohol problems. Methods: In the cross-sectional population survey ‘health 2000 in Finland’ (n = 10 000) carried out in 2000, alcohol dependency was measured using the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for alcohol dependence. The CIDI (composite international diagnostic interview) was applied to ascertain lifetime DSM-IV diagnoses for substance abuse diagnoses, including alcohol dependence. Individuals were considered to be employed if they were working part-time or full-time. Results: Male abstainers have on average 9.5 percentage points lower employment probability than non-abstainers. However, abstainers who have never drunk alcohol do not have lower employment probability than non-abstainers. Abstainers who are diagnosed as alcohol dependent have 27 percentage points lower employment probability than non-abstainers. Conclusion: The underperformance of abstainers in a labour market sense is almost entirely due to the fact that some abstainers are ex-drinkers who in our study are identified as alcohol-dependent. Otherwise abstaining does not decrease employment probability.
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