Buying Beer: How Long Does It Take To Afford one?

I know, I know… It’s only Tuesday and almost a whole work week until you can kick back and open a cold one to enjoy the weekend. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take a look at some quite interesting beer statistics, right? We could probably quite easily put together a list of what different beers cost in different countries around the world. However, when it comes to how long it would take you to earn enough money to buy one, now that is a whole different thing. Buying beer doesn’t exactly require the same amount of energy or work all around the world, but should it? In a perfect world, I think it should. But that’s not how reality is, and unfortunately some people have to work harder for their beer.

Enjoying a beer is also different around the world. I remember from living in Los Angeles that you can’t drink beer in public there. The thing is, here in Sweden, you can drink beer pretty much wherever you want. It’s your behavior that decides whether you will be stopped by the police. Usually they just confiscate your beer, pour it out and then drive you home. But that just happens if you for some reason are a hazard to the people around you.

Buying beer for your hard earned cash might seem like a petty thing, but that’s when you should have a look at this research presentation put together by The Economist. Looking through it, you will quickly see that buying beer around the world involves infinitely more energy and work time than in the United States. In the U.S. for example, it will take you approximately 5 minutes of work time to be able to buy a beer. On the other hand, buying beer in India will take you about 53 minutes of hard work. That’s a huge difference, don’t you think? So next time you pop a cold one, drink it while thinking about what it takes to buy a beer in India, and I am sure it will taste a whole lot better.