Gender and intergenerational transmission of alcohol use patterns: an analysis of adult children in Moscow.

Based on a 1996 sample of adult children and their parents in Moscow, this study investigates the degree to which alcohol use patterns are transmitted from parents to adult children and examines the roles of gender, family status, and family interaction dynamics for transmission. Findings suggest that parents' drinking and family status/interaction patterns indeed influence adult children's alcohol consumption. Frequency and volume of alcohol use is higher among children whose mothers typically drink about 3 or more drinks daily or who drink on a weekly basis. Fathers' frequency and volume of alcohol use positively influences only sons' drinking. Mothers' drinking, however, may undermine fathers' positive effect on sons. Fathers' verbal and physical abuse significantly affects daughters' consumption.