Alcohol Cycles: Trends in the Alcohol Consumption in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, 1980–2010

Abstract

This paper aims at revealing the main trends in consumption of alcoholic beverages in Russia between 1980 and 2020. The author studies alcohol cycles and change in the structural model of consumption basing on the data collected from complementary sources including Rosstat and WHO statistics on the volume of alcohol consumption, expert estimates of the illegal alcohol consumption, and survey data from 29 waves of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS-HSE) on changes in prevalence of alcohol use and changes in the volumes of alcohol consumption.

Overall, official statistics and self-reported data demonstrate similar trends revealing cyclical movements in the level of legal and illegal alcohol consumption. These cycles are accompanied by sustainable shifts in the structure of the consumed alcoholic beverages. The Soviet structural model of alcohol consumption emerged in 1960–1980s and after a series of external economic and political shocks gave room to a new model associated with a gradual transition from the traditional Northern style of drinking. The author observes a steady decline in the use of vodka and strong spirits and shows that beer took over vodka initially in prevalence of use and then in the volume of consumption in liters of pure alcohol, while consumption of wine remained relatively stable. Upward wave in the alcohol consumption was replaced by a new downward wave by the end of 2000s showing a decline both in prevalence and volume of alcohol consumption (mainly due to an increasing number of abstainers). However, this downward trend was interrupted in a second half of the 2010s. The course of the following consumption wave remains unknown and should be revealed in the future studies.

Acknowledgements. The study was conducted at the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology at the HSE University and support by the Program for Basic Research of the HSE University.