How drinking habits are changing worldwide

Young people certainly drink less often but binge drinking is now more common

Source: https://www.ft.com/

MICHAEL SKAPINKER 

August 13, 2019

Diageo last week took a majority stake in Seedlip, a non-alcoholic spirit sold as an alternative to gin – a move seen by analysts as the drinks giant’s attempt to grab more of the growing teetotal market. The young are more abstemious than their elders, and manufacturers and marketers need to keep up.

For those of us who don’t drink or, in my case, only occasionally, a reduction in others’ drinking, along with a fall in the antisocial consequences, is a welcome development. At a wedding in Italy this summer, I marvelled as a group of Italian and French guests partied under a hot afternoon sun and late into the night, without anyone staggering or slurring in the way they would inevitably have done in the UK.

But how much less are people drinking? Is overdoing the booze really on the decline?

Alcohol is largely confined to certain countries. Much of the world does not, for religious or cultural reasons, drink at all. Worldwide, in 2016, 57 per cent of those aged 15 or over had not drunk alcohol in the previous 12 months, according to World Health Organization figures.

Much drinking is confined to certain parts of the world. The only regions where more than half the over-15 population drank alcohol were the Americas, Europe and the western Pacific, the WHO said. The highest per capita consumption was in Europe, although European drinking had decreased, from 12.3 litres per person in 2005 to 9.8 litres in 2016.

There are signs of increasing teetotalism in drinking countries. In the UK, where Diageo is headquartered, one in five people aged 16 and over said they did not drink at all in 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics. The trend is particularly noticeable in the younger generation. Among 16- to 24-year-olds, the proportion who claimed not to drink rose from 19 per cent in 2005 to 22.8 per cent in 2018. Among 25- to 44-year-olds, non-drinkers rose from 15.5 per cent in 2005 to 20.6 per cent in 2017.

The over-65s showed a different pattern: 24.2 per cent said they were non-drinkers in 2017 but that was a fall from 29.4 per cent in 2005.

The consequences of a drop in drinking are difficult to assess. While alcohol is often implicated in street fighting, domestic violence and accidents, it is not the only factor. The sober can be guilty of causing them too.

One way of looking at drinking’s effects is who ends up in hospital. In England, the number of hospital admissions where an alcohol-related condition was either the primary or contributory reason has increased every year since 2008, according to Public Health England.

But, again, there were generational differences. Among those admitted to hospital for reasons that were primarily alcohol-related, the biggest increase was in the over-65s, followed by 40- to 64-year-olds. There has been a significant reduction in alcohol-related hospital admissions among teenagers. “Alcohol-specific hospital admissions in the under 18s have been falling every year over the past decade,” Public Health England said.

So does this make the case? Are youngsters drinking so much less that we can call them the sober generation? Not quite. When they do drink, they are more likely to do it to excess than their parents and grandparents. While the number of over-65 teetotallers had fallen, theirs was the generation least likely to binge-drink, the ONS said. And “despite finding that those aged 16 to 24 years were the least likely to say they drank in the week prior to interview, when they did drink they were the most likely to binge.”

Nor is this just a British phenomenon. Alcohol consumption in France is actually higher than in the UK: 12.6 litres per head in 2016, compared with Britain’s 11.4 litres, according to the WHO. (Italy’s consumption was 7.5 litres.) But while the over-65s were more likely to drink every day, with a small glass of table wine, the younger French generation also tended to drink less often but more when they did, Viet Nguyen Thanh, head of the addiction unit at Santé publique France, told the Europe 1 radio and news site.

So it is probably best not to over-romanticise my views of continental European drinking habits, or of the growth in teetotallers. There is a market for non-alcoholic drinks. But there are still plenty of drinkers, even among the young.