Survey Says Substance Abuse Among Working Women Rises With Income

The incidence of substance abuse among working women rises with their incomes, while among men the reverse is true, experts said at a conference Thursday.

Of women earning less than $12,000 a year, 10.2% reported substance abuse, compared to 26.8% of men in the same income bracket, said Terry Blum, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Management.

Of women making more than $30,000 a year, 14.4% reported substance abuse, compared to 10.5% of the men in the same wage category, Blum said, citing a 1988 survey of 8,800 households that defined substance abuse as use of marijuana, cocaine and other drugs, as well as excessive drinking.

Much of the substance abuse among working women in particular can be traced to the stress of managing both job and family roles, Blum said.

Women in traditionally male-dominated fields drink more than women in female-dominated fields, according to data released at the conference. These women are more influenced by male values and cite unhappiness as a cause of their drinking, the research shows.

The incidence of substance abuse was 11% to 12% among women in manufacturing, retail trades and professions, Blum said.

Of women ages 18 to 34 with full-time jobs, 10.6%, or 1.9 million, reported illicit drug use, she said.

Drug and alcohol abuse by women causes serious problems in the workplace, particularly because 70% of women who are substance abusers hold down jobs, she said.

Among those problems are lower productivity, higher absenteeism, more workplace accidents, increased health care costs, theft, and the price of prevention and treatment programs.

Studies show that overall, employees who abuse drugs and alcohol take more than twice as many sick days as other employees and file for twice as many health care benefits, Blum said.

They are five times as likely to file workers’ compensation claims and three times as likely to have workplace accidents, she said.

They cost U.S. business an additional $50 billion in additional health insurance, Blum said.

About 200,000 women in the United States will die this year of illnesses related to substance abuse, more than four times the

number who will die of breast cancer, said Joseph Califano, former secretary of health, education and welfare and founder of the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

Of those women, about 77% will die from tobacco-related illnesses, 20% from alcohol-related illnesses and 3% from drug-related illnesses, he said.

The conference was sponsored by CASA and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.