Gen Z is abandoning alcohol (2024)

Gen Z has been known for either not drinking alcohol at all or enjoying a more moderate relationship with alcohol.

Some 64 percent of legal-drinking-age Gen Zers in the U.S. said they had not consumed alcohol in the six months leading up to May, according to the International Wine and Spirits Record (IWSR), a global drinks data and analytics provider. While American Gen Zers are underrepresented because of the country's higher drinking age laws, the pattern can be seen globally.

"A surprisingly large proportion of younger legal drinking age communities are now claiming that they abstain from alcohol altogether," Consumer Research COO Richard Halstead said. "This is particularly true in Japan and North America, but the moderation trend is also prevalent in other markets across Europe, Asia and Australasia."

Research into the lifestyles of Gen Z, carried out by the market intelligence agency Mintel, showed that a "significant number of (British) Gen Zers are shifting their focus away from drinking alcohol, both inside and outside the home, and opting instead for sober socializing."

In January, it found that about one-third of Brits aged 18 to 24 do not drink alcohol at all, while those that do keep drinking for a treat, as a way to relax or to mark a special occasion. This signals a huge shift in culture in the West, where drinking regularly has long been commonplace.

While millennials drink more than Gen Z, they also show signs of reduced drinking in comparison to Generation X, some 80 percent of which report consuming alcohol, according to neuroscience app Reframe.

Newsweek spoke to some experts to try to find out why this shift has taken place, including sobriety coach Christy Osborne who runs Love Life Sober in the U.K.

Osborne said one of the reasons is as simple as there is more awareness that alcohol has detrimental effects.

This is a "sharp contrast to the past when such information was either less accessible or less emphasized" and "today's young people are informed about the health risks associated with drinking," she told Newsweek.

Consumer futurist William Higham, who authored the book The Next Big Thing, contextualized this further.

"Gen Z are very risk averse," he told Newsweek. "Why? Partly because parents and the media have made them so [helicopter parenting, clickbait headlines, Naomi Klein's theory of 'politics of fear' etc.]. Partly because they are under more pressure than previous generations to do well at school, college and first jobs, and hangovers don't mix well with that.

"Plus, being drunk a few decades ago might embarrass you in front of a few friends for one night, but social media means now that number could be multiplied massively, and the results could linger forever."

The non-alcoholic beverage industry has seemingly responded to this, becoming the third-fastest-growing category in the U.S. over the past two years, according to data company Numerator.

This "plethora of options," combined with popular celebrities like Tom Holland, Zendaya and Miley Cyrus being openly sober, make it an easier culture not to drink in, Osborne said.

But Higham has been particularly interested in whether a sobriety trend has been a direct response to Gen X. While carrying out research for a drink brand, he found that "Gen X parents were still living a comparatively youthful lifestyles: many were still drinking and going to concerts, clubs and festivals after they were 'supposed' to have settled down into a pipe-and-slippers-style middle age."

"Child development theory shows us that adolescents' attitudes and behaviors are often a reaction against their parents. In the last 100 years or so that's typically meant young people reacting against conservative parents by being rebellious.

"So, I wondered: Could the reverse be true? Might children of hedonistic parents react against them by becoming conservative? If you saw your parents drunk, hungover and divorced, might that put you off alcohol and promiscuity?

"How do you shock 'cool' parents? Maybe by being teetotal? I started investigating and found evidence that that's pretty much exactly what was happening. Rates of alcohol consumption, recreational drug use and promiscuity had started to first plateau, then decline."

Osborne, who has no Gen Z clients, said: "Unlike older generations, who often turned to alcohol as a primary means of managing stress, today's youth are more informed about the physiological consequences of drinking. They may be aware that the temporary pleasure derived from alcohol is often outweighed by the long-term negative effects on mental health.

"Drinking alcohol may one day be viewed in the same light as smoking is today—a habit of the past, replaced by more health-conscious choices. Similar to the decline in tobacco use, the sober-curious movement is gaining momentum and further supports this trend."