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A demographic interpretation of the decrease in alcohol consumption in Italy.

Article Excerpt
Changes in the population's age structure could potentially explain the changes in overall wine consumption. Indeed wine consumption tends to be nil or very low under the age of 14 years, and relatively low up to 20-25 years, after which it rises and touches its highest value between 40 and 65 years, then decreasing after 65-70 years of age. As a consequence, it is possible that the reduction in alcohol consumption (and in wine in particular) over the last 30 years may have been partly due to a larger proportion of the population being in the older age-bracket, where wine consumption is limited.

In analyzing Italian population trends, as recorded since the birth of the nation (1861) to the present, when it amounts to about 60,000,000 inhabitants, we can see that the population has more than doubled. However, this increase has not been constant. The population doubled over the approximately 100 years from 1861 to 1961. During the 40 years following that, it only increased slightly, by about 6 million people.

Starting from the 1960s, the Italian population has progressively aged. This has been due both to a lower number of births, and to the extended average life expectancy. Figure 1 illustrates the population's average age in different years.

Considering the alcohol consumption trend and the population trend, it is possible to ask the following question: could the reduction of alcohol consumption be due to the progressive aging of the population--since we know in fact that the older age group drinks much less alcohol?

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Table 1 illustrates the Italian population breakdown by age and gender, from the 1950s to the present. Focusing our attention on the period of 1950s-1980s, which corresponds to the growth and the subsequent first phase of the fall in wine consumption, we can see that the proportion of the...