The share of Indian men and women drinking alcohol has fallen consistently over the past decade and a half, an analysis of three rounds of National Family Health Surveys shows. Men’s share fell from 32% in 2005-06 to 29% in 2015-16 and then sharply down to 22% in the latest round recorded in 2019-21. Women’s share has consistently stayed low, slipping from just over 2% 15 years ago to about 1% in the last two surveys.
But men in both urban and rural India are drinking more regularly, whereas women are drinking less frequently than five years ago. A smaller percentage of men are drinking in almost all large states except in Himachal Pradesh.