Top 10 Costa Rica

Small Segment of Population Consumes Most Liquor in Costa Rica

Although 57 percent of Costa Ricans drink alcoholic beverages, they do so in moderation, but 10 percent of the population drinks 80 percent of the total liquor consumed in the country, a new study shows.

The report, prepared by the Latin American School of Social Sciences, or Flacso, and published Saturday in the daily La Nacion, found that 5 percent of Costa Ricans who drink more heavily ingest 65 percent of all the alcohol consumed in the country.

The situation of the 1 percent of the adults who drink even more heavily is even more serious, since this group consumed 34 percent of all the liquor sold each year in the Central American nation.

The study says that, on average, Costa Ricans consume 3.9 liters of pure ethanol per year, although there are important differences between the sexes.

A liter is equivalent to just over 1.05 quarts.

Men are the ones who drink more, consuming an average of 6.06 liters of ethanol per year, while women’s consumption is just 1.74 liters per year.

The results of the study are the product of a combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies among which stands out a study by the firm Unimer of 1,812 people all over the country, a survey that had an error margin of 2.3 percent.

Another relevant fact that emerged from the study was that 25.8 percent of men and 10.6 percent of women in Costa Rica began drinking before they were 18 years old.

Carlos Sojo, the coordinator of the study, said that that some positive figures also came out in the study.

Some 43 percent of the population does not drink any alcohol and 72 percent of the drinkers do not drink more than four drinks per night, Sojo said.

The researcher, however, emphasized the need to attend to and rehabilitate the 10 percent of the population that drinks more heavily and consumes 80 percent of the total alcohol ingested in Costa Rica.