One of the trends that is happening, as a recent Food Theory YouTube video drop, is that Gen Z is rejecting alcohol and so consumption is much much lower than for older generations.
But I’m wondering: is this true in Europe? I’m
coming from a United States background, where alcohol is more heavily regulated and attitudes about its consumption have been shaped by the previous history of things like Prohibition. So the decline doesn’t feel like it’s that surprising to me.
But I’m curious about the situation in Europe. Does the decline hold true there as well? And does it surprise you, or do you have any ideas as to what may be factoring into the decline of it is even declining? I understand that the answers will vary from country to country because it’s not a monolith. I’m interested to hear perspectives all over.
43 comments
Austria: We are a country with an unfortunaltely high alcohol consumption, as alcohol is part of cultural events. So on one side, many young people are socialized with alcohol due to the events throughout the year. On the other side, on the last christmas company party (usually a heavy drinking event) most of the very young trainees/employees drank no alkohol, the same could be seen at a wedding where I was invited. Personal impression, it is getting better, but starting from a very high level.
I’d say alcohol is not really popular here in my part of Italy, and even less so amongst young people.At least compared to many parts of Northern, Eastern and Central Europe.
It’s rare that people go out to get drunk,or that they have more than a beer or a glass of wine with a meal.
Amongst the young specifically,I think even that low level of alcohol use is getting lower…a lot of people don’t have the traditional (for past generations) wine with dinner.
Young people still go out, they might have a spritz or a cocktail, but heavy drinking is really frowned upon here, and it’s extremely common to have a soft drink instead.
If I go out somewhere nearly everyone will be drinking. Then again I suppose my view is skewed because I usually go out to bars and nightclubs.
If anything I’d say it has probably increased somewhat, drug use has risen as well. I remember when mdma or coke was a bit more taboo but now it is pretty common even in small towns (not in a damaging way but weekend use).
In Norway, young people seem to be getting shitfaced on weekends at the same rate as they did when I was young.
The statistics claim young people drink less in Czechia, but when I overhear my students… it doesn’t seem that way. If I ask them directly, they will giggle and be “oh nooo, noooo, we never drink”. But we had a “prom” recently and lots of them even the underaged got drunkity drunk
I’m Finland you get generations are being cited as partial reason as to why bars are suffering, less drinkers at least at bars. Less smokers too. Even I’ve started drinking less.
From anecdotal evidence – yes. Im 27 and people like under 22 drink a less than we did once. No substitute (weed or other drugs) to. Thats my observation from a small village. Its just anecdotal..
But i live near the Moselle and can literally see wineyars if i walk a bit outside. Very ingrained in culture (what i want to say – my feeling is the generation 40+ drinks a lot more often – say a glaas wine at diner. Its VERY unusual for people in my age i know to do that).
*weed for me is not an alcohol subsitute. Meaning, weed is very antisocial drug for me (i like). Its legal here. But never ever could it replace alcohol in social settings. Stigma is there to. i dont drink anymore due to addiction issues with it but i get stoned each weekend..its a trade off and works for me.
As for other drugs.. really not. People look at me like im crazy for trying LSD multiple times. But its rural here. And i know atleast 1 person who pro psychedelics and this and that. But generally not the case.
And going out to drink, not only hanging out in your village bumfuck nowhere, is expensive.
In the Netherlands it is. Some say its too expensive they just drink water all night and have a pill
As a Father of teenager, 16 yrs I can say they’re drinking less even in groups but use of kratom and hemp is increasing. What I think isn’t worse, but it’s different. They are enjoying buying alcohol, but it’s catching dust in pantry for months.
Yes I’d say so. It’s hard to percieve because we are especially suffering from alcoholism as a country but statistics show a downward trend and you can confirm the same visually as there are fewer drunk youngsters out there on the weekends compared to 20 years ago.
The UK and Norway where I’ve both lived people start getting shit faced in their teens and don’t stop.
Norway has an entire graduation month that is entirely dedicated to partying and getting as drunk as possible.
So, in Northern Europe, I don’t see any slowing down of alcohol consumption.
It really depends I would say. Lots of young people are very much into a more healthy lifestyle. Or simply because of going out is expensive. Some people dont drink at all, non alcohol beer is gaining popularity as well while some people use drugs as a cheaper alternative.
While on the other hand we are still quite heavy drinkers according some research.
What I think it’s happening (at least in my circles but I believe it can be expanded):
Those who drink do so in the same quantities as before (more or less, there’ll always be some variation), but there are more people who don’t drink at all
It seems like kids in Poland start drinking later than 10-20 years ago. They still do it underage, just the majority starts doing it somehow regularly around age 16-17, instead of 14-15.
The numbers of drunk teenagers caught by police are clearly lower.
Netherlands:
No, statistics show that the alcohol consumption among young people in this country is in fact growing and it was never low. When you look at the aldult population as a whole, there is a sight decline. (I defnitely see a decline in my own social circle, btw, but I’m a 40+ woman.)
For a lot of young people they can’t afford to drink as much. It used to be possible to get shitfaced for £10, now a pint is over £5.
Gen Z also seem to be more health conscious in general, but also we’re seeing a rising demographic of young people from cultures that don’t drink.
I don’t see that on Spain. Kinda remains the same as in the 90s.
There are a lot less smokers, though.
In central and east europe they keep drinking even less than the past generations, hopefully they won’t change 🤞
I’m in Scandinavia. And no. But hardly anyone smokes any more, camping is up by a bit but not all the same as smoking used to be.
I’ve [pulled up some statistics](https://www.bioeg.de/fileadmin/user_upload/PDF/pressemitteilungen/daten_und_fakten/Infoblatt_DAS_Alkoholkonsum_final.pdf) (German) and alcohol consumption, especially regular and/or heavy one, among young people is definitely on the decline, and has been for decades.
The ratio of teenagers (age 12-17), who have drunk alcohol at least once in their lifetime went from almost 90 % in 2001 to 60-65% in 2023. For the age bracket of 18-25 y/o there’s barely any change (90-95%).
The number of teenagers who have drunk alcohol in the last 30 days went from 58 % to 38 %.
The number of male teenagers who have drunk alcohol at least once a week for the past 12 months went from 36 % in the mid 80s to 12 % now.
For male people aged 18-25 it even went from 85 % in the late 70s to 39 % today. So basically half.
I’d say here in The Netherlands, right now, people around my age (20s) really only drink when it’s the occasion for it. So if you go clubbing yeah a lot more, or at a party like gathering maybe a little beer or wine but nothing excessive. But in general when you’re just chilling together people don’t really drink, whereas I feel in the past people would drink at almost any occasion or even alone after work.
People in Sweden aged 17-29 drank 30% less alcohol in 2021 compared to 2004. [Source (in Swedish)](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/unga-dricker-allt-mindre-minskning-med-en-tredjedel-sedan-2004)
> attitudes about its consumption have been shaped by the previous history of things like Prohibition.
Prohibition didn’t come out of nowhere. Alcohol abuse has been a big thing in the US basically forever.
It seems pretty consistent across Anglo cultures IMO.
I’m in Sweden the alcohol consumption amongst the younger generation has declined. The legal age at a bar or restaurant are 18 years old but you need to be 20 to buy alcohol in a store. Only special government owned stores can sell alcohol you can bring with you home so we’re quite strict too.
The stigma around alcohol has risen. Right now a scandal is unfolding where doctors secretly do Peth tests on patients when they’re there to have other testas taken and report them to the authorities if it’s too high so they lose their driving license. This might be borderline illegal.
Yes, consumption of alcohol, cigarettes is less.
Mostly because they switched to non alcoholic drinks, vapes and lots of drugs 🤯🤤.
So nothing really changed, these fuckers just found new way to kill themselves…🙄😑
Living in Poland, the readily available 0% options hold prominence on shelves in supermarkets much more than they did a decade ago. I think that aligns with consumer habits.
Seems to be going down in many places but sadly replaced by drug use. Cocaine use has increase enormously.
Yes I think it is, well at least where I live in the UK. I’m 40 and when I became old enough to drink there were tonnes of pubs and nightclubs.
As an example I grew up in a small village of 3500 people, we had 5 pubs (yes really 5) in the village. Fast forward to 2025 and there are now none. It’s the same in surrounding areas. In the UK we used to have a large amount of pubs that solely served alcohol (maybe also crisps and nuts) they would have a pool table, cigarette machine, jukebox, fruit machine and if your lucky an arcade machine. These places no longer exist, or only in very very small numbers. Any pubs that are left have to serve food, and decent food at that to survive.
I think people these days are a lot more health conscious and also don’t forget that drinking was part of socialising and going to pubs and nightclubs was a way of how to meet a girlfriend or boyfriend. Nowadays kids do their socialising on their phones, social media or gaming. They meet partners on dating apps. Everything socially had changed.
Nightclubs are virtually non existent, there used to be about 20 (3 or 4 per town) near where I lived. Now there is 1, even major ones or large chain owned nightclubs have gone bust, Covid seems to have killed off the last ones
Most people my age seem to have gone almost down this route as well, far more people being fitness conscious and not drinking especially as they head towards their 40s. it seems like our parents generation (now in their 60s) are the last true drinking generation with many of them still drinking consistently
As for central europe:
What do you mean by young? Minors or 18+?
Among minors: yes, it’s been declining, mostly because it’s harder to find a small corner stores where they’ll sell vodka and beer to 13y olds. But declining doesn’t mean that it disappeared, it just means that compared to us 12-16 y olds consume less alcohol.
16-20: in my country the legal age of drinking is 18, but 16y olds usually can by light alcohols like beer or wine (depends on the store employees)
This age group I think is consistent, nothing major changed.
20-30 now this is the age group that is intresting, because I think they don’t drink less, but there are waay less alcoholics, who have physical and/or phsicologicall problems with alcohol.
This age group would still rank one of the highest in europe based on alcoholism, but our statistics in the 80-90’s where that we had the highest % of alcoholics in the WORLD.
So definitly big improvement.
It’s much more socially acceptable to drink less or even not at all. Compared to 20 years ago, no one will give you a hard time for drinking a nonalcoholic drink or alcohol-free beer.
But alcohol is still very ingrained in our culture. And there’s still many younger people that binge drink.
I think people just don’t get uncontrollably drunk much anymore. Peer pressure is non-existant in my social circle, and parties are really only held on special ocassions
No idea, I’m 50yo and when I meet youngsters, I bring them all under the table (not much of them can drink half a litre of whisky in 2 hours and stay straight and urban and continue to talk nicely).
COVID changed a lot.at least in our suburbs.
Before that it was quite common that there were house parties or gatherings and alcohol was always there.
After COVID the youngs seem simply doesn’t meet in larger groups anymore and if they do close to no one consumes alcohol. Weed has become the new way to go drug.
You can like it or not but you cannot deny that this caused various other problems.
They discovered weed instead.
But people did use to start drinking younger, longer, and even during pregnancy.
If you add up the numbers doing both alcohol and weed or other drugs often, you do indeed get a higher proportion than what it used to be…
But at least liver damage and kidney issues due to chronic alcohol dehydration have gone down in younger people. Well, idk about that to be fair, proportionally to the population, it just sounded like it did, but I haven’t seen official comparisons between now and the 80s!
Yes. Both my youngest sister and my own teenager say the same. Drinking culture is declining. There are still many young people who go to bars and get drunk, but there are fewer people, and the ones who do drink start later.
Personally I think it has to do with how people socialise and with the internet. When I was a teenager, the way to be able to participate in social groups was to drink alcohol. If you didn’t, you pretty much was a loner.
Now teenagers find others online who share their hobbies and interests. So they have communities there. And they feel less pressure to drink alcohol as the entrance ticket to social groups.
I always find this Gen Z alcohol comparison a bit ridiculous. First off, half of Gen Z can’t even legally drink yet. And secondly, I also drank way less when I was ~18-25 than I do now in my early 30s. Couldn’t really afford a nice bottle of wine or whiskey back then…
But yes, overall, there is a trend from generation to generation of people drinking less. But this has been going on for like 150 years. It’s not new
I don’t have any statistics to back me up, just my own observations, but I think in Poland there’s a shift from stronger alcohol to lighter, rather than decrease in drinking. Older generations drink vodka, younger prefer beer and wine.
Not really, but I suppose younger generation is more apt to find alternative substances. There are a bit more restrictive regulations coming in soon that will limit the time alcohol can be sold. Maybe the trend has dropped a little bit, based on statistics and personal experience, but not significantly.
I don’t know the data but I have worked in a bar and I’d say that yes, people < 30 yo drink much less than people > 40 yo.
Greetings. This is France. I live 30 minutes from Bordeaux.
The world city of red wine.
We talk more about free fall than decline.
On the other hand, drug consumption is not on the rise but on a space elevator….
Hash, weed, ppp, cocaine, crack, etc….
most definitely, there is absolutely no doubt against that. the generation of my younger sister barely has more than a couple friends, who can they ever drink with lol
Yeah alcohol consumption in my gen is like half of what it was in the 70s when we look at the actual stats of it. This holds true in much of Europe.
In France, I certainly see a decline. Gen Z drinks much less than Gen X in my experience.. and I’ve noticed Gen X pivoting towards less alcohol, more expensive stuff.