DEMAND FOR ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES IN GHANA.
(A CASE STUDY IN THREE SELECTED DISTRICT IN GHANA)
Thesis Proposal
1. INTRODUCTION
Background to the study
The misuse or abuse of alcohol constitutes one of the leading causes of preventable death, illness and
injury in many societies throughout the world. Alcohol consumption is associated with a variety of
adverse health and social consequences. Adverse effects of alcohol have been demonstrated for many
disorders, including liver cirrhosis, mental illness, several types of cancer, pancreatitis, and damage to
the fetus among pregnant women. Alcohol use is also strongly related to social consequences such as
drink driving injuries and fatalities, aggressive behaviours, family disruptions and reduced industrial
productivity.
The consumption of alcoholic beverages exhibits certain features which put these commodities into a
category different from other consumable goods. As Cook and Moore, (2000) emphasized which was
echoed by Pierpaolo Pierani and Silvia Tiezzi that ‘alcohol is an intoxicant: consumed in sufficient
quantity in a single session, it impairs mental and physical functioning and it is potentially toxic.’
Also alcohol consumption has direct intertemporal consumption: past consumption generates habit
formation and addiction. Thirdly, chronic alcohol use affects physical and mental health over the
course of years or decades.
Available data for three countries of Africa, (namely: Burkina Faso, Congo and Cameroun) shows an
important growth in the industrial production of alcoholic beverages (mostly beer) over the last 20
years, while variation in traditional home production remains unknown. However, lack of data on
consumption permit a good appreciation of the problem.
Although few data on alcohol consumption and drinking patterns are available from the developing
world (Ialomiteanu, 1998), increasing alcohol consumption is observed in developing countries,
among other factors, to economic growth, stress, conflict, (Acuda, 1982), etc. A threefold increase in
per capita alcohol consumption based on national sales has been observed in several of these countries
over the last two decades, whereas trends were stable or decreasing in several Western countries
(World Drink Trends, 1995). Alcohol's impact in developing countries is of particular concern,
because the production and consumption of wine, spirits and beer is growing in virtually every part of
the developing world; beer consumption is growing faster in developing countries just as in most
developed countries, particularly as alcohol industries can develop quickly in nations with no
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industrial tradition as access to brewing, distilling, and wine production is relatively easy (Curry,
1988).
However, sales data do not generally account for the consumption of indigenous alcoholic drinks or
alcohol produced illegally, which may be the major source of alcohol consumed in several developing
countries (Kortteinen, 1988). Quantifying home-brew drinking therefore necessitates investigations
relying on self-reported data. Such information may also help to answer questions on home-brew
consumption patterns. This includes the extent to which populations of drinkers shift from homebrewed to factory-made beverages or vice-versa, the effect of cost on choice of beverage, the
individual and country's socio-economic level and the changing attitudes regarding the status of
particular beverages (Colson and Scudder, 1988; Ambler, 1990; Mukolo, 1992).
The Ghanaian beverages market is changing in the recent years. This change might be mainly due to a
shift in demand for alcoholic beverages and advertising. While total wine consumption has slightly
decreased, with spirits consumption remaining stable, beer consumption is believed to have increased
drastically of late, and therefore, their market shares have risen.
According to FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), World Drink Trends
2003 survey, an urban survey of a random cluster sample of Ghanaians aged 25 years and above from
the Greater Accra area of Ghana (total sample size n = 4733; males n = 1857 and females n = 2875)
found that 54.5% of the total sample drink alcohol
In a study of 894 senior secondary students in Accra (56.9% female and 43.1% male; mean age of
17.4 years) using a modified version of the Youth Risk Behaviour Survey questionnaire, it was found
that the prevalence rate of lifetime alcohol use was 25.1%. Among lifetime users, 46.2% were
currently using alcohol.
2. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
One of the major scientific problems for considering the impacts of drinking upon injury rates in
human populations is the resolve of the behavioral and social mechanisms which consequently results
to problems related to alcohol. Just as the excessive use of alcohol can impair the performance of
organ systems, the use of alcohol in specific social contexts can impair individual and social
behaviors to such a degree as to lead to accidents, injuries and death.
3. LITERATURE REVIEW
There has been a significant growth in the literature on the economic aspects of consumption
behaviours among various societies and cultures.
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Beginning with Grossman, et al. (1987), a series of studies have documented the responsiveness of
youthful drinking to several measures of the contemporaneous full price of alcohol consumption
including the price of alcohol, the tax on beer, minimum purchase age laws and other state and
local restrictions on access to alcohol. Good reviews of this literature are provided by Grossman,
Chaloupka, Saffer and Laixuthai (1994), and Cook and Moore (2000). The focus of this section is
on those studies that have examined the intertemporal dimension of alcohol consumption.
There are very few published papers that investigate the relationship between past and current
drinking. These studies can be separated into those that take a reduced form or correlation
approach, and those that engage in structural modeling. Beginning with the former, Mullahy and
Sindelar (1989) use data on males aged 25-59 from the Epidemiological Catchment Area survey to
investigate the relationship between early onset of alcoholism and current alcoholism, treating
early onset as exogenous. They find that early onset (measured by indicators for earliest symptoms
of alcoholism at 18 years or younger and earliest symptoms of alcoholism between 19 and 22) is a
key determinant of displaying symptoms of alcoholism in the current period.
While these studies provide evidence of the persistence of alcohol use controlling for a range of
factors, they shed no light on the respective roles of state dependence and heterogeneity in
explaining this persistence. The following three studies attempt to address this issue.
Cook and Moore (2001) use the 1982-1985 and 1988-89 waves of the National Longitudinal
Survey of Youth (NLSY) to carry out a reduced form investigation into the existence of habit
formation in alcohol drinking. The authors investigate how policies in place when respondents
were 14 years of age effect current alcohol consumption, measured by participation in drinking in
the past month and binge drinking in the past month. Of the three policy variables investigated
(beer tax, minimum purchase age and state ethanol use), none had any impact on the probability of
current drinking, and only the minimum purchase age affected current binge drinking.
Nonetheless, this study provides some evidence that availability of alcohol during adolescence
may have an effect on the likelihood of alcohol abuse in later years, consistent with the existence
of habit formation.
The two studies that take a structural approach to investigate the intertemporal relationship in
alcohol use are, Grossman, Chaloupka and Sirtalan (1998), and Moore and Cook (1995).
Grossman et al. (1998) investigates whether there is evidence of rational addiction in the alcohol
use of young adults using longitudinal data on 19-27 year olds from the Monitoring the Future
survey of high-school seniors, and the subsequent follow-up surveys. They find that both future
and past consumption causes current consumption, establishing the existence of habit formation
and rational addiction. In terms of the role of heterogeneity, the evidence from this study is mixed.
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There is some evidence that failure to account for the endogeneity of past and future drinking leads
to overestimates of their impact on current drinking.
Moore and Cook (1995) using data from the 1982-1985 waves of the NLSY find evidence of habit
formation and rational addiction but no evidence of endogeneity of past and future drinking.
The authors also carry out a reduced form investigation into the existence of habit formation,
similar in nature to their subsequent paper discussed above. They find that when drinking is
measured by the quantity of drinks or participation in drinking, the legal drinking age at fourteen
has a persistent effect on female but not male drinking. Early availability, however, does affect the
probability of current binge drinking for both males and females. Taken together, the reduced form
and structural results provide evidence of habit formation in drinking behavior.
Overall, this literature provides evidence that drinking patterns of youth and young adults,
including college students, are persistent over time. There is also evidence that drinking is habit
forming based on data for the general population of youth and young adults. Given the concern
over this populations’ excessive use of alcohol, there is a clear need to better understand the cause
of their problematic behavior.
Alcohol-related death and disability account for even greater costs to life and longevity than those
caused by tobacco use, according to the global burden of disease study sponsored by the World
Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank. This study puts alcohol's global health impact on a
par with unsafe sex and above tobacco in terms of its contribution to the total number of years of life
lost to death and disability as recorded in Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs). In addition to
chronic diseases that may affect drinkers after many years of heavy use, alcohol contributes to
traumatic outcomes that kill or disable at a relatively young age, resulting in the loss of many years of
life to death or disability.
While recorded alcohol consumption among adults has fallen steadily in most developed countries
since 1980, it has risen steadily in the developing countries and countries of the former Soviet Union.
The rise in alcohol consumption in developing countries provides ample cause for concern over the
possible advent of a matching rise in alcohol-related problems in those regions of the world most at
risk.
4. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The main survey objectives are to:
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●
measure the prevalence and patterns of alcohol consumption;
●
assess related harm or problems;
●
evaluate trends;
●
measure demographic, contextual or proximal risk factors of use; and
● assess range of responses to problems that includes attitudes towards users
and problem behaviours.
5. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Given that this research survey contains self-reported data on respondents’ current drinking and
retrospectively reported information on their past drinking period, we specify a simple two period
empirical model of alcohol consumption. In period 1, individual i is in their past drinking period
while in period 2, they represent their current drinking situation. Individual i’s latent demand for
alcohol in current drinking period (D*i2) is a function of actual alcohol consumption in past drinking
period (Di1), the contemporaneous full price of alcohol (Pi2), time invariant observable characteristics
that affect drinking behavior such as gender and race (Xi), time varying observables such as
membership in a sorority or fraternity (Yi2), and a random disturbance term εi2. Actual past alcohol
consumption (Di2) is observed when latent demand crosses the zero threshold.
D*i2 = α0 + α1Di1 + α2Pi2 + α3Xi + α4Yi2 + εi2.
D i2 = 1(D* i2 > 0).D* i2
The unobservable component of alcohol demand εij (i=1,…N, j=1, 2) consists of a fixed individual
specific component, ui, and a component that varies randomly across individuals and time, vij
εij = ui + vij. This model can be viewed as the empirical counterpart to the standard utility maximizing
habit formation model, assuming a single period budget constraint, a quadratic utility function, and a
constant marginal utility of wealth. The coefficient on past drinking, α1 , is of primary interest. If a1 is
positive, then habit formation is said to exist.
6. METHODOLOGY
This outlines the methods to be employed for the study. It describes sources of data, research
instruments, sampling design and statistical methods that will be used to analyze the data.
6.1 Data Source and capture
The study will also make use of primary data through household and key informant interviews as well
as focus group discussions by the Researcher and some members in each respective interview area.
The household interviews as well as the Focus Group Discussions will be conducted in six localities.
These will be chosen in such a way that one urban and a rural locality is selected respectively in each
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district under investigation. However, acquisition of such data will be very much dependent on the
financial status of the researcher.
Research Instruments
Structured questionnaires will be used to collect primary data. In all, three hundred questionnaires
will be used for the study. I will employ and train three persons who will assist me to administer the
questionnaires. Since majority of the rural residents cannot read and write, I together with the
research assistants will interpret the questions to the respondents and write their response on their
behalf. Focus group discussions will be organised to solicit people’s views the consumption of
alcohol where audio recording device will be used to record what members or participants of the
discussion say. Also I will employ two interpreters each in two of the three sampled districts where
respondent speak different language.
Sampling design
The main sampling techniques that will be employed for the study are simple random, purposive and
systematic random sampling. Because the district is made up of rural and urban localities, simple
random sampling will be used to select some localities from both the rural and urban areas. In the
selected areas, systematic sampling will be used to collect data.
In order to minimize travel expenses associated with interviewing, multistage samples that select
geographically clustered households will be employed. In selecting a multistage sample, the sampling
frame is first divided into Primary Sampling Unit (PSU) that is the regional enumeration or statistical
areas. These primary sampling units will be stratified according to either characteristics of the
geographic area: either urban or rural. At the second stage of sample selection, a sample of smaller
geographic area, that is, the district statistical area is selected randomly or systematically from within
the sample, regional enumeration or statistical area. At the district level, rural and urban communities
each will be selected where respondents will be interviewed respectively.
In all, three hundred respondents are expected to be interviewed: Hundred from each selected district
(constituting 50 respondents each from rural and urban communities respectively).
Purposive sampling would also be used to collect data from focus group discussions: key informants
include opinion leaders such as chiefs or their representatives, community youth leaders, family
heads, etc., to determine the effect of consumption of alcohol in the life of the people in particular and
in the socio-economic development of the area in general.
6.2: Methods of Data Analysis and Time Plan
The study uses multivariate analysis of alcohol consumption patterns to explore the relationship
between various demographic measures and alcohol consumption patterns among people in the
sampled communities in the three selected districts, using the data that will be collected from survey.
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In particular, it will address the impact of gender, age, and other exogenous measures on four drinking
pattern measures: drinker status (current drinker versus abstainer), drinking frequency, average drinks
per occasion, and variance in drinking patterns.
Data collection period is scheduled and tabulated as follows:
1. Trip to Ghana
2- 06-2006
Field Work
1. Begin date
5- 06-2006
2. End
10- 07-2006
date
2. Return Trip from Ghana to Finland
23-07-2006
7. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study will bring to fore whether the consumption of alcohol has really brought about
impediments and problems as against leisure in the lives of people who are addicted to alcohol
consumption. The study will help identify peculiar problems associated with the phenomenon so that
suggestions and recommendations could be made to authorities or policy makers in the district and
the nation as a whole. Also the outcome of the research will also be added to existing stock of
knowledge and literature on study of alcohol consumption in the district and in the country at large.
8. Budget
The budget for the entire trip has been put in a tabular form below.
Travel Expenses
1. From Helsinki,
Finland to Accra,
Ghana by Air (return
flight)
SEK
9,783
(1046 euros)
Living Expenses
Food and
accommodation for
51 days @ 30
euros(280.637 SEK)
SEK
14,308
(1530
euros)
2. Internal Travels:
From Accra to each
of the three districts
and respective
localities, back to
Accra
(Total)
5,612
(600 euros)
Total
15,395
Total Budget
42,524 SEK (4546 euros)
Field Costs
1. Travel costs for 3
research Assistants and 2
interpreters @50
euros(467.801 SEK)
SEK
2,339
(250 euros)
2. Accommodation and food
for the 3 Assistants for 7
days each @30 euros
(280.637 SEK)
6,738
(720 euros)
3. Honorarium for the 3
research Assistants and 2
interpreters @100
euros(935.414 SEK) and @
50 euros (467.803 SEK)
respectively
14,308
7
3,744
(400 euros)
12,821
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Production, Trade and Consumption 1950–1972, 27, 209–222. Aurasen
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Akyeampong E. Alcoholism in Ghana: a socio-cultural exploration. Culture, Medicine and
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Chaloupka F.J. and Wechsler H. 1996. Binge Drinking in College: The Impact of Price,
Availability, and Alcohol Control Policies. Contemporary Economic Policy 14: 112-124.
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Culyer, A. eds). Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Cook. P.J. & Moore, M.J. 2001. Environment and Persistence in Youthful Drinking Patterns, in
Risky Behavior among Youths (Gruber Ed). University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Grossman, M., Chaloupka, F.J., Saffer, H. and Laixuthai, A. 1994. Effects of Alcohol Price Policy
on Youth: A Summary of Economic Research. Journal of Research on Adolescence 4:347-364.
Grossman, M., Chaloupka, F.J., and Sirtalan, I. 1998. An Empirical Analysis of Alcohol
Addiction:
Results from the Monitoring the Future Panels. Economic Inquiry, 36: 39-48
hnston, L.D., O'Malley, P.M., & Bachman, J.G. 2000. National Survey Results on Drug Use from
Moore, M.J., & Cook. P.J. 1995. Habit and Heterogeneity in the Youthful Demand for Alcohol.
(Working Paper No. 5152). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
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Occupation. Inquiry 26: 272-282.
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