The Drinks Industry And Media Keeps Blaming Generations – Often It's Just Age

The drinks industry is currently building a story around generations: Gen Z is said to be turning its back on alcohol, while Baby Boomers are supposedly embracing moderation. Research from Sweden, Estonia and Finland, however, paints a far more complicated picture. People do drink less as they age – but later generations have repeatedly drunk more than their predecessors did at the same age. Before drawing strategic conclusions, the industry needs to separate ageing from generational change.

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A recent IWSR Bevtrac consumer survey gave a good reason to think about this: only 71% of Baby Boomers reported having consumed alcohol in the past six months – the lowest share of any generation. Per occasion, they drank an average of 2.6 drinks, against an all-adult average of 3.9. That figure is interesting, but it doesn't yet tell you what it's usually made to tell you.

Is this generational, or just age?

As people age from 50 to 70, alcohol consumption typically falls. This is a normal life-course pattern seen in many countries.

So a 70-year-old drinking less than a 50-year-old doesn't yet prove that a particular generation has changed its relationship with alcohol. It may simply reflect getting older.

What's needed is a completely different comparison: how does today's 70-year-old drink compared with how 70-year-olds drank 20 or 40 years ago? Only that comparison gets at an actual generational effect.

In Sweden, later cohorts of 70-year-olds drank more

Gothenburg's H70 study made exactly this comparison. The sample included 2,268 seventy-year-olds, examined at four points between 1976 and 2016 – different birth cohorts, but the same age.

The result was clear. Among men, the share exceeding the risk threshold (at least 100g of alcohol per week) rose from 16.1% in 1976–77 to 45.3% in 2014–16. In between, the figure already stood at 29.9% in 2000–02. Among women the shift was even more dramatic, rising from 0.5% to as much as 24.3%.

The researchers' conclusion was unambiguous. Later-born cohorts of 70-year-olds drank significantly more than earlier ones, and the change was most pronounced among women.

A later-born 70-year-old may drink less than they themselves drank at 40 – and still more than a 70-year-old drank decades earlier. These two facts aren't in conflict. They are the age effect and the cohort effect, operating at the same time.

In Estonia, age, period and cohort were separated

The Estonian data goes a step further. A study published in 2021 analysed alcohol consumption among 16–64-year-olds from 1996–2018, using an explicit age–period–cohort model that calculates all three effects separately. The sample was substantial: 11,717 men and 16,513 women.

The result: consumption peaked among 20–29-year-olds and declined in older age groups – a clear age effect. At the same time, overall consumption rose throughout the study period, and birth-cohort trends diverged by sex.

The study is a useful reminder that not everything can be explained by a single generation. Age, societal change and birth cohort can pull in different directions at the same time.

One caveat: the Estonian data only extends to age 64, so it can't be used to make claims about 70-year-olds. That's exactly where the Swedish data is needed.

In Finland too, older adults' drinking has increased

The same pattern shows up domestically. According to THL's (Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare) Drinking Habits Survey, alcohol use among 55–69-year-old Finns in particular has risen over the long term. Roughly one in ten in this age group now drinks alcohol at least four times a week.

At the same time, the same rule applies as in Sweden and Estonia. An individual's own consumption falls as they move from 60 to 70 to 80.

So two statements can both be true at once. Older Finns today drink more than older Finns did in the past – and yet each of them individually drinks less than they did 20 years earlier.

Two different ways of measuring reality

The Swedish and Estonian studies are longitudinal, decades-long cohort studies, following the same age group repeatedly over time. IWSR's Bevtrac, by contrast, is a consumer survey comparing self-reported behaviour every three years.

Both approaches are valid, but they don't measure quite the same thing, and shouldn't be treated as equally weighty evidence for the same claim. IWSR tells you what's happening right now. The Swedish and Estonian studies tell you what has happened across generations.

The same mistake is being made about Gen Z – just in reverse

The Drinks Business ran a headline in July 2026 that quickly circulated across the whole industry: “IWSR: Gen Z moderation ‘myth’ debunked.” IWSR's Marten Lodewijks stated flatly that the narrative of Gen Z as the moderating generation has now been disproven.

The numbers explain why. Among legal-drinking-age Gen Z consumers, 74% reported drinking alcohol in the past six months in 2026. In 2023, the equivalent figure was 66%. The overall adult share was 76%, Millennials 81%, and Gen X 77%.

So Gen Z's participation rate has climbed to nearly the level of the rest of the population in three years. That is a real, measurable change, and this column isn't disputing it.

But in the same data set, the average number of drinks per occasion fell across the entire population, from 4.4 to 3.9. Gen Z favours cocktails more than other age groups, pays closer attention to official drinking guidelines, and their drinking occasions are more often tied to larger social settings rather than solitary relaxation.

So two things are true at once:

Young people aren't disappearing from the alcohol market. And alcohol is still being consumed more moderately than before.

These shouldn't be treated as contradictions, any more than Boomers' 71% participation rate should be treated as proof of a “moderation generation” before separating out how much of it is age and how much is generation.

IWSR itself warns against overly simple readings

There's a telling detail in IWSR's own recent analysis. The company notes that Boomers (61+) are the only generation showing simultaneous declines in participation, drinking frequency and drinks per occasion. But it also notes that older cohorts are consistently the most likely to report drinking less, partly, it says, as an entirely ordinary function of ageing.

That's an important caution from the industry's own data provider: when people aged 61+ drink less than 20–40-year-olds, it doesn't yet prove that Boomers specifically have discovered moderation.

The industry needs a three-dimensional model

Consumers shouldn't be defined solely by birth year. Three perspectives are needed at once: what happens to a person as they age, how people born in different years differ from one another at the same age, and how the broader drinking culture changes over a given period.

This isn't academic hair-splitting. It has direct implications for which products get developed and who they're marketed to. If an older consumer drinks less, they aren't automatically a lost customer. They may want a smaller bottle, a better wine, or one good drink instead of several mediocre ones.

A 70-year-old isn't just a Boomer. A 50-year-old isn't just Gen X. A 20-year-old isn't just a Gen Z representative. They are people at a particular stage of life, members of a particular generation, and consumers of a particular era.

The most important question, then, isn't which generation a consumer belongs to. It's this: what stage of life are they in, and how has their relationship with alcohol evolved to this point?

Sources: Ahlner et al., Alcohol Clin Exp Res 2018 (Sweden, H70 study) · Baburin et al., Alcohol and Alcoholism 2021 (Estonia, APC study) · THL (Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare), Drinking Habits Survey · IWSR / The Drinks Business, “IWSR: Gen Z moderation ‘myth’ debunked,” 14 July 2026 · IWSR, “Boomers drive TBA declines as Gen Z steps up,” 23 July 2026