A new study published in the Journal of Health Economic looked at the minimum legal drinking age and educational outcomes.
“Our study examines whether raising the minimum legal drinking age from 16 to 18 affects teenagers’ drinking behaviour, academic performance, and mental health,” study author Carmen Villa told us. “We are the first to explore a link between alcohol and educational performance in a European context where nearly all countries have increased the minimum legal drinking age in the last two to three decades. »
The research team expected to find a reduction in drinking behaviours after the minimum legal drinking age increases, as they were guided by previous literature from a wide range of contexts. However, they were genuinely uncertain whether lower drinking would translate into measurable educational or mental health gains.
“I am interested in how public policies, particularly those affecting teenagers, can shape life trajectories,” Villa told us. “A minimum legal drinking age is implemented in almost every nation, and there are important differences across Europe, the US, and other regions, even within Europe itself. As someone from a generation that experienced minimum legal drinking age increases during adolescence, I was curious about their effects and found this to be particularly policy-relevant for European contexts where drinking at 16 is still legal in some countries.”
The researchers studied Spain’s policy landscape where different regions raised their drinking age at different times between 2003 and 2019. In most countries, minimum legal drinking age changes are implemented nationwide at the same time. The staggered timing allowed the researchers to compare regions implementing the reform against those that hadn’t yet changed their laws. They analyzed data from approximately 250,000 teenagers’ drinking surveys, 180,000 PISA test-takers, and 600,000 census respondents.
“We found that raising the drinking age reduced the probability of teenagers getting drunk by 17% in the last month and cut binge drinking by 14%,” Villa told us. “These behavioural changes led to a 4% improvement in standardized test scores, roughly equivalent to two additional months of schooling. We also found a 10% reduction in teenagers’ use of anti-anxiety and sleep medications, showing mental health benefits.”
Villa described how the fact that they saw improvements not just in drinking and academics, but also in mental health, was striking.
« We were also somewhat surprised that teenagers didn’t substitute toward other substances like cannabis and didn’t seem to significantly change their leisure habits,” Villa told us. “The effects seem genuinely about alcohol and cognitive performance specifically.”
These findings suggest that countries where 16-year-olds can still legally drink such as Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, and Germany, could achieve educational gains from raising the age limit to 18. It would be a relatively low-cost policy intervention compared to other educational reforms with similar effect sizes.
“While some teenagers will always find ways to access alcohol, our results show that legal restrictions still matter,” Villa told us. “The policy doesn’t need to be perfectly enforced to be effective. Even partial reductions in teenage drinking can meaningfully improve cognitive development during these crucial years.”