A longitudinal exploration of alcohol use and problems comparing managerial and nonmanagerial men and women.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the job attitude and drinking context correlates of alcohol beliefs, consumption, and problems between managerial and nonmanagerial women and men. Using longitudinal, self-report data from 1244 workers in a large manufacturing organization, we found that managerial women reported significantly higher levels of alcohol problems on a number of measures on both Times 1 and 2 surveys. Using partial correlations and controlling for Time 1 levels of the alcohol-related dependent variables, we found that few work attitudes predicted the outcomes of escape drinking reasons, alcohol consumption, and alcohol problems. However, those correlations that were significant reflected a differential pattern for managerial women as compared to managerial men and nonmanagerial women and men. Due to the small subsample size of managerial women, we regard these findings as suggestive only. We discuss the findings in terms of the stress-reduction hypothesis of alcohol consumption.