UK teenage girls 'worst drunks'

Young teenagers in the UK are more likely to get drunk than anywhere else in the industrial world, shows an international survey. Girls in particular have pushed up this level of drunkenness in the UK, says a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Among 15-year-olds, girls are more likely to have been drunk than boys.

But the report also says young people in the UK are materially well-off and enjoy a "high quality of school life". The report, Doing Better for Children, compares the well-being of young people living in the leading industrial economies.

This wide-ranging international study shows young people in the UK enjoying generous support as they grow up - with above-average state funding, a high quality of school life, below-average child poverty and low levels of bullying. But in their personal lives, the UK youngsters are characterised by alcohol abuse and high rates of teenage pregnancy.



Parents in England, Scotland and Wales are also among the most likely to have separated - with the United States having the lowest proportion of children living with both parents.

Drunkenness in the UK is the highest among 24 OECD countries, measured in terms of the proportion of 13 and 15-year-olds having been drunk at least twice. The UK's figure for these under-age drunks - 33% - is more than double the rate for countries such as the United States, France and Italy. Among girls the gap between the UK and other countries is even wider.

One in five 13-year-olds in the UK reports having been drunk twice - four times higher than countries such as the United States, Sweden and the Netherlands. Among 15-year-old girls in the UK, 50% reported getting drunk, almost three times higher than their counterparts in France. The rate for boys in the UK in this age group getting drunk is 44%.

Doing Better for Children.