Building social capital

Dawn Sagario, who writes a Workbytes column for the Des Moines Register recently reported this interesting news about the workplace:

Drinkers earn 10 to 14 percent more at their jobs than nondrinkers, economists Bethany Peters and Edward Stringham found.

"As long as you're not drinking into excess, then it's a good thing," said Stringham, an associate professor of economics at San Jose State University.

...The findings, published by the Journal of Labor Research and Reason Foundation, showed that men who drink earn 10 percent more than those who abstain; for women drinkers, it's a 14 percent boost over nondrinkers' pay.

Don't go overboard. Stringham notes research finding that those who consume between 21 to 38 drinks per week will make less money than a nondrinker.

Re: social capital. Male drinkers who go to bars at last once monthly take home 7% more than those who don't. That finding doesn't hold for women. Hmmm.

The data came from the General Social Survey, which had 8000 respondents.

This is a followup to "Go ahead, clean your plate."



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