One nightmare of parents of a girl is that she would get drunk and get into "unanticipated" sexual acts. If you told your daughter not to drunk with this in mind, be advised that her drinking is not really an issue here. And this advice come from an economist.
Glen Waddell uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and finds that sexual activity does not depend on one's own drinking. And, interestingly, female sexual activity depends (positively) on the male's drinking, but not the reverse. In other words, tell your daughter to get involved with boys who do not drink, but she can drink.
I think you missed a critical 'not' in the last sentence.
ReplyDeleteThanks, it is now corrected.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but I call endogeneity/Lucas critique on this one. If girls were to change their dating habits the equilibrium patterns of safe vs. unsafe will be different.
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ReplyDelete"...female sexual activity depends(positively) on the male's drinking, but not the reverse."
ReplyDeletei can not figure this one out, but i am not an adolescent either.
what about for people older than 21? my experience tells me that there is a high correlation between alcohol consumption by women and men and sex. (but unfortunately, i rarely drink. +_+)