Ask an industry executive why Gen Z is drinking less and you’re likely to hear the usual generalisations: “They care about health,” or “They want premium experiences.” But these answers, argues Bourcard Nesin, senior beverage analyst at Rabobank, are overly simplistic – and often wrong.
In a sharply analytical new US-focused report, The Real Reasons Generation Z Is Drinking Less Alcohol, Nesin dismantles the popular myths around Gen Z drinking habits and offers a data-driven framework for understanding the future of alcohol consumption. His findings, one might argue, should give the drinks industry both reassurance and a strategic wake-up call.
It's the economy, actually
The headline reason Gen Z are ‘drinking less’? They’re skint.
“Gen Z ain’t got no money,” Nesin writes – bluntly capturing what the data shows. Compared to older generations, today’s young adults have lower incomes, less stable employment, and are only just beginning to form independent households. Many are still under the legal drinking age. When you factor all that in, their spending on alcohol starts to look remarkably normal.
In fact, Gen Z spends the same share of their after-tax income on alcohol as millennials did at the same life stage. It’s just that they don’t have much to spend in the first place.
The idea that Gen Z are inherently different starts to unravel further when you look at historical data. Across the past 40 years, younger adults have increasingly delayed their drinking – but by their mid-30s, most catch up to prior general norms. Nesin’s analysis suggests Gen Z will do the same, albeit at slightly lower levels.
Screens, surveillance and shrinking privacy
While economic factors explain a large chunk of Gen Z’s behaviour, Nesin also dives into how the digital world has reshaped youth social life – and, by extension, drinking culture.
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