The analysis of 4 million people, born between 1891 and 2001, showed that men used to be far more likely to drink and have resulting health problems.

But the current generation have pretty much closed the gap, the BMJ Open report says.

The changing roles of men and women in society partly explain the move towards drinking parity.

The study showed that in people born in the early 1900s, men were:

More than twice as likely as women to drink alcohol at all (2.2 times)
Three times as likely to drink to problematic levels
And 3.6 times as likely to develop health problems from drinking, such as liver cirrhosis