Drinking no longer default for Korea’s Gen Z

Pedestrians are scarce on a street near Hongdae area in Mapo District, Seoul, in July 2021. Newsis

By Pyo Kyung-min

• Published Apr 28, 2026 1:00 AM KST
• Updated Apr 28, 2026 11:17 AM KST

On a recent weeknight near Seoul's Hongdae area in Mapo District, a group of students gathered at Yeokjeon Halmaek, a familiar bar franchise. They ordered cans of zero-sugar Coke and a single highball, splitting one shot among four glasses. No one asked for soju.

For bar owners, scenes like this now feel routine.

"Alcohol is usually where the margins are," a worker at the Hongdae bar told The Korea Times on the condition of anonymity. "So now when a table orders a lot, I can't help but notice. They feel like a VIP."

For Korea's younger generation, drinking is no longer the default social currency it once was. But the shift is not a simple turn toward abstinence, it's something more interesting — a renegotiation of what alcohol means, who it is for and how much of a life it deserves.

Among the Korean Gen Zs, the frequency of drinking is falling sharply, while the nature of consumption is tilting toward lighter, more deliberate choices.

Highballs with modest proof, craft low-alcohol beers and other nonalcoholic alternatives are gaining ground, reshaping not just what Koreans drink, but why they bother drinking at all.

'Bragging about drinking is immature'

Kim Joo-hee, 30, a marketing coordinator in Seoul, remembers when the rhythm of her life as a Korean office worker was inseparable from alcohol.

In her memory, office dinners ran long, rounds were expected and showing up to work the next morning feeling groggy from the hangover was practically a badge of seniority.

"From what I've heard and personal experience, that was the norm," she said. "But the mood has completely changed. If someone brags about how much or how long they drank the night before, it almost feels thoughtless. It's like they haven't figured out how to spend their time."

While Kim said she still enjoys drinking, she has learned to stop short of letting it affect the next day.

The calculation is both economic and aspirational. Hangovers cost time, and for a generation juggling side projects, gym routines and sleep tracking, time has become a valuable commodity.

"I feel like Gen Z cares more about managing themselves better," she said. "Drinking works against that."

The fading of Korea's "hoesik" culture, or mandatory after-work gatherings, during the COVID-19 pandemic, has helped accelerate the change. As those obligations have loosened, the social permission not to drink has expanded.

"When no one forces you to go, you quickly realize that you didn't want to go in the first place," Kim said. "And then you start asking why you were drinking so much to begin with."

The numbers behind Kim's experience are striking.

According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, 56 percent of people aged 19 to 29 reported in 2024 that they either abstain entirely or drink no more than once a month. This marks the highest proportion recorded since the survey began in 2005, when the figure stood at 37.9 percent. The share first crossed the 50 percent threshold during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

What is significant is that it has continued rising even as restrictions lifted and campuses reopened.

The data suggests that the pandemic did not merely interrupt a drinking culture; it gave a generation of young Koreans the distance to question whether they wanted it back.

Chun Su-jin, a 27-year-old graduate student in business administration, put it more bluntly.

"There are just so many other options in Korea to spend an evening now," she said. "Good fine-dining food, or even a cocktail bar where you actually taste what you're drinking ... If I'm going to spend money anyway, I'd rather spend it on something I'll remember."

The 'sober curious' wave

The shift is also being shaped by a broader cultural realignment around health and self-investment.

Global lifestyle movements — "sober curious," which questions the default role of alcohol in social life, and "healthy pleasure," which emphasizes well-being without renunciation — have found a receptive audience among young Koreans.

According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the proportion of people in their 20s who exercise at least once a week rose to 65.2 percent last year, the largest increase of any age group.

In a separate survey, 44.3 percent of respondents in their 20s cited weight management or blood sugar control as reasons for cutting back on drinking.

In this context, alcohol is increasingly seen not just as optional but as counterproductive, undermining sleep, disrupting training and draining the energy a generation is trying to preserve.

The trajectory is not unique to Seoul.

In Japan, per-adult alcohol consumption has fallen from roughly 100 liters annually in 1995 to 75 liters in 2020, and terms such as "shirafu" (a sober lifestyle) and "alcohol banare" (a drift away from drinking) have entered everyday conversation.

In the U.S., a Gallup survey conducted last year also found that only 50 percent of adults aged 18 to 34 reported drinking alcohol at all, down more than 20 percentage points from the long-term average.

What distinguishes Korea's version of this shift is the speed of the change and the specific cultural weight that drinking once carried.

The "hoesik" tradition was not merely a social habit — it was bound up with loyalty and the performance of commitment.

Its erosion represents something more than a change in taste.

Quieter night out

For the hospitality industry, the recalibration is already visible in revenue lines and menus. Bars and restaurants that once relied on alcohol for their highest-margin sales are experimenting with nonalcoholic cocktails, low-ABV beer programs and zero-sugar soft drinks that justify the same table spend with none of the proof.

The nonalcoholic beverage category is maturing rapidly to meet this demand.

According to market research firm Euromonitor, Korea’s nonalcoholic beer market grew 55.2 percent over two years, from 41.5 billion won in 2021 to 64.4 billion won in 2023. It is projected to reach 94.6 billion won by 2027.

Other alcoholic beverages are also lowering their alcohol content. Last year, Lotte Chilsung Beverage renewed its flagship soju brand "Chum Churum," reducing its alcohol content from 16.5 percent to 16 percent, about four years after lowering it from 17 percent to 16.5 percent in 2021.

HiteJinro has also gradually reduced the alcohol content of its key products, including "Chamisul," to 16 percent since 2023. The company’s flagship soju "Jinro" is also at 16 percent.

What is emerging in Korea is not a culture of abstinence but something subtler — a culture of optionality. Alcohol remains present, available and, for many, genuinely enjoyable.

What has changed is the assumption around it. Drinking is no longer seen as the point, the price of admission or the social glue that holds an evening together.

Kim, the marketing coordinator, told The Korea Times that she still drinks occasionally — a glass of wine at an Itaewon rooftop restaurant she likes or a cold beer at her favorite Hannam-dong barbecue place.

What she no longer does is drink out of obligation, expectation or the quiet social pressure that once made refusal feel like rejection.

"People like me still drink," she said. "But I do it because I actually want to — not out of force."

In that shift, from drinking as default to drinking as choice, culture once defined by collective endurance is becoming more individualized. Nights are shorter, and mornings are clearer. For a generation that has decided its time is worth protecting, that is enough.