National
Underage drinking: One in two young people want legal drinking age lowered─── 08:22 Wed, 23 Jul 2014
Bloemfontein - One in two young South Africans believe the current legal drinking age of 18 should be lowered.
This according to consumer insights company Pondering Panda, which interviewed 4657 people between the ages of 15 and 34, across South Africa. The survey found that 50% of the participants believed it to be appropriate for people under 18 to drink alcoholic drinks.
Younger respondents were slightly less likely to advocate a legal drinking age under 18. About 43% of 15 to 17-year-olds felt the age at which people should legally be able to drink should be under 18, compared to 54% of 18 to 24-year-olds, and 48% of 25 to 34-year-olds. Among race groups, young white South Africans were the most likely to want a legal drinking age under 18. Almost two thirds of whites (63%) felt the legal drinking age should be lowered, compared to 59% of brown people and 46% of blacks.
There were also regional differences, with respondents from the North West (59%), Limpopo (57%) and the Free State (57%) the most likely to support a legal drinking age under 18. In contrast, KwaZulu-Natal respondents were the least in favour of a lower drinking age, with 38% of respondents from this province selecting an age under 18.
When asked whether they felt underage drinking was a problem in South Africa, respondents were evenly split – 49% believing it was a big problem in SA and another 49% feeling it was not really a problem in our country.
“Those who are more likely to see underage drinking as being a problem are less likely to want to lower the legal drinking age. They’re more likely to have seen the impact of underage drinking, and to want to curb it. As our recent study of South African school learners found, for the second year running, one of the biggest perceived problems in schools is drugs and alcohol. This new survey puts the spotlight on underage drinking in SA, and the disturbingly high support for legalising this phenomenon,” said Shirley Eadie, spokesperson for Pondering Panda.
“What we know is that underage drinking is very prevalent in our society. The question is, what are we going to do about it?”.
