some of the inconsistencies between findings may be explained by the wide variety of definitions of drinking used eg weekly or monthly frequency of heavy drinking and by the variety of definitions of socioeconomic background used eg income occupation employment status in a number of countries switzerland germany france united kingdom sweden finland czech republic and hungary both men and women with higher incomes were found to be more likely to consume alcohol kuntsche et al similar findings were reported based on data from estonia latvia and lithuania me kee et al