A Study with Finnish Drinking Occasions JUSS I SIMPU RA DRINKING CONTEXTS AND SOCIAL MEANINGS OF DRINKING A Study with Finnish Drinking Occasions Distributors: AKATEEMINEN KIRJAKAUPPA, Keskuskatu 1, 00100 Helsinki 10, Finland RUTGERS UNIVERSITY CENTER OF ALCOHOL STUDIES, Publications Division, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, U.S.A. ISBN 951-9 I 92-25-5 ISSN 0356-2654 Printed in Fin land b_ K. J. Gummerus Qy Jyviiskylii ! 983 DRINKING CONTEXTS AND SOCIAL MEANINGS OF DRINKING A Study with Finnish Drinking Occasions JUSSI SIMPURA THE FINNISH FOUNDATION FOR ALCOHOL STUDIES VOLUME 33 I Contents LIST OF TABLES IV LIST OF FIGURES VI 1. DRINKING OCCASIONS IN SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CHANGE: AN INTRODUCTION 2. DRINKING OCCASIONS AS SOCIAL EPISODES: CONCEPTS AND APPROACHES 4 Occasions, episodes or situations? 4 The concept of 'social' and approaches to a study of drinking occa- sions 6 The ecological approach 7 Drinking occasions in Finnish alcohol research: toward a cultural approach 9 3. CULTURE, LIVING CONDITIONS AND DRINKING OCCA- SIONS 12 4. FINNISH BOOZING AFTER THE GREAT MIGRATION: ATASK IN THE STUDY OF DRINKING OCCASIONS 18 Finnish boozing 18 The Great Migration 20 Alcohol control policies and drinking habits 22 Cultural homogeneity and the coexistence of the modern and the traditional in Finnish drinking: a task in the study of drinking occa- sions 26 5. DATA ON DRINKING OCCASIONS IN THE 1976 DRINKING HABITS SURVEY IN FINLAND 29 Population, sample and response rate 29 Data collection 30 Validity of the data 31 Surveying drinking occasions 31 Properties of the verbal descriptions of drinking occasions 32 Processing verbal descriptions for analysis 36 6. A TYPOLOGY OF DRINKING CONTEXTS 38 Everyday life versus non-everyday life and other bases for a typology of drinking contexts 39 II Everyday life versus non-everyday life 39 Intimacy, privacy and life spheres 40 Ritual aspects of drinking 41 The typology of the present study 42 Examples of drinking occasions in the main categories in the context typology 43 Everyday life contexts 44 Non-everyday life contexts 47 Undefined contexts 54 The outcome of classifying drinking occasions into context types 55 7. THE NUMBER AND PROPERTIES OF DRINKING OCCASIONS IN VARIOUS DRINKING CONTEXTS 57 The number of drinking occasions in various contexts and their share in aggregate alcohol consumption 57 Properties of drinking occasions in various contexts 62 Alcohol intake and beverage types 62 Private and public in terms of place and company 65 Ritual aspects in various contexts 69 Drinking and other activities taking place on an occasion 72 On the validity of the context typology 74 What is new about Finnish drinking: initial conclusions 75 8. SOCIAL MEANINGS OF DRINKING IN VERBAL DESCRIPTIONS OF DRINKING OCCASIONS 79 The validity of verbal descriptions as reflectors of social meanings 79 Social meanings and their expressions: a semiotic perspective 82 Social meanings of drinking 83 A code for expressions in verbal descriptions of drinking occasions 85 The distribution of expressions into main categories 87 Clustering the expressions and the interpretation ofclusters in terms of the social meanings of drinking 90 9. SOCIAL MEANINGS IN VARIOUS DRINKING CONTEXTS 100 10. DRINKING OCCASIONS IN SUBPOPULATIONS 106 Choosing subpopulations 106 Drinking contexts in subpopulations 108 Expressions of social meanings of drinking in various contexts in subpopulations 114 Drinking occasions in subpopulations: summarized findings 120 11. CONCLUSIONS 122 Living conditions and drinking contexts 123 A unified Finnish drinking culture? 124 III Methodological problems of the present study 126 Implications for further research 127 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 129 APPENDICES 130 Appendix 1: Collecting and processing data on drinking occasions in the 1976 drinking habits survey in Finland 130 Appendix 2: Categories of drinking contexts applied in classification of drinking occasions on the basis of their verbal descriptions 137 Appendix 3: Code for mentions in verbal descriptions 141 Appendix 4: The clustering procedure by I. C. Lerman 152 155 REFERENCES IV List of tables 1. Indicators for the share of drinking for intoxication in the adult Finnish popula- tion in the years 1968 and 1976 (drinkers only) 25 2. Length of the verbal descriptions of drinking occasions in the 1976 survey (percent of descriptions for each sex) 32 3. "Degree of authenticity" of verbal descriptions of drinking occasions in the 1976 survey (percent of descriptions in each group) 34 4. Point in time of latest drinking occasions from interview day in the 1976 survey (percent of occasions in each group) 36 5. Estimates of the number of annual drinking occasions in Finland according to the 1976 survey 58 6. Distribution oflatest drinking occasions into types of drinking contexts in Finland in 1976 59 7. Estimates ofaggregate annual alcohol consumption in Finland by various survey- based methods in the 1976 survey 60 8. Distribution of aggregate alcohol consumption into various drinking contexts in Finland in 1976 (percent of aggregate consumption) 61 9. Distribution oflatest drinking occasions in various drinking contexts in Finland in 1976 by amount of alcohol consumed per occasion (percent of occasions in each context, observations weighted with drinking frequency) 63 10. Distribution oflatest drinking occasions in various drinking contexts in Finland in 1976 by blood alcohol concentration of the respondents (percent of occasions in each context, observations weighted with drinking frequency) 64 11. Distribution oflatest drinking occasions in various drinking contexts in Finland in 1976 by beverage combinations (percent of occasions in each context, observa- tions weighted with drinking frequency) 66 12. Distribution oflatest drinking occasions in various drinking contexts in Finland in 1976 by place of drinking (percent of occasions in each context, observations weighted with drinking frequency) 67 13. Distribution oflatest drinking occasions in various drinking contexts in Finland in 1976 by number of participants (percent of occasions in each context, observations weighted with drinking frequency) 68 14. Distribution oflatest drinking occasions in various drinking contexts in Finland in 1976 by the composition of drinking company (percent of occasions in each context with the presence of company mentioned; non-solitary occasions only; observations weighted with drinking frequency) 70 15. Features ofrituality and role ofalcohol in various drinking contexts in Finland in 1976 (percent of occasions in each type with the feature in question, observations weighted with drinking frequency) 71 16. Occurrence ofcertain activities on drinking occasions in various drinking contexts in Finland in 1976 (percent of occassions in each context with the occurrence of activity, observations weighted with drinking frequency) 73 I 7. Occurence of certain mentions in verbal descriptions and on questionnaire sheets among the 2 396 latest drinking occasions (percent of all mentions in question) 81 18. Frequencies of mentions in verbal descriptions of drinking occasions in the 1976 survey (percentage distributions and frequency of each category per hundred de- scriptions) 88 V 19. Distribution of mentions in the verbal descriptions into categories of expressions of social meanings produced by cluster analysis 96 20. Presence of categories of social meanings in various drinking contexts (figures percent of occasions in each context type belonging to each category of meanings, weighted with annual drinking frequencies) 102 21. Distribution of drinking occasions into context types in subpopulations: sex, residence and generation (percent of occasions, weighted with drinking frequen- cies, in each subpopulation) 109 22. Distribution of drinking occasions into context types in subpopulations: social status and drinking categories (percent of occasions, weighted with drinking fre- quencies, in each subpopulation) 112 23. Distribution of drinking occasions into context types in subpopulations combined by generations, sex and drinking frequency (percent of occasions, weighted with drinking frequencies, in each subpopulation) 113 VI List of figures 1. The mythological structure of Finnish male intoxication 19 2. Consumption of alcoholic beverages in Finland during the period 1950-1975, in litres of 100 % alcohol per capita, in litres of I 00 % alcohol per population aged 15 years or over and in million litres of I 00 % alcohol 23 3. Percentages of the consumption of alcoholic beverages accounted for by distilled spirits, fortified wines, natural wines, long drinks and beer in Finland during the period 1950-197 5 24 4. The date of each respondent's latest drinking occasion in the 1976 drinking habits survey in Finland 35 5. The clustering tree in the unweighted set of verbal descriptions condensed to the significant levels 92 6. The general structure of clustering tree in unweighted data 95 7. The general structure of clustering tree in data weighted with drinking frequen- cies 97 8. Profiles of drinking contexts in terms of their position in ranking order with respect to the presence of social meanings in verbal descriptions I 04 9. Profiles of drinking contexts in terms of their position in ranking order with respect to the presence of social meanings in verbal descriptions in subpopulations 116 1 Drinking occasions in social and cultural change: an introduction This study, like many others, has proceeded in an unorthodox order, starting with an a theoretical interest in data collection