S. Korea: Singles Spend More on Alcohol than Couples: Report

The Korea Bizwire
By M. H. Lee
May 9, 2022 

SEOUL, May 9 (Korea Bizwire) — Single-person households tend to spend more on alcohol compared to larger households, a report said Sunday.

A research team from the state-run Korea Rural Economic Institute analyzed data from Statistics Korea to identify the average amount of spending on processed foods and the share of each item among the total spending by the size of the household.

The study showed that in terms of the share of household spending on processed foods, beer and the rice-based liquor soju ranked fourth and 12th, respectively, for single-person households, higher than seventh and 16th for two-plus person households.

Wine also ranked higher at 24th for single-person households, while it didn’t even rank in the top 30 for two-plus person households.

Coffee and bottled water ranked fifth and 14th, respectively, for one-person households, higher than eighth and 21st for two-plus person households.

The research team noted that the share of alcoholic drinks and beverages was relatively high among single-person households’ spending on processed foods.

Beer ranked higher at seventh for the fifth income quartile households compared to 12th for the first income quartile households.

In contrast, soju ranked higher at 15th for the first income quartile households compared to 18th for the fifth income quartile households.

This indicates that spending on beer tends to increase along with an increase in income, in contrast to the decline in the share of soju, the report noted.

The first quintile group represents 20 percent of the population with the lowest income (an income smaller or equal to the first cut-off value), and the fifth quintile group represents the 20 percent of population with the highest income (an income greater than the fourth cut-off value).