A new study by Eurostat has found that 8.4% of the EU adult population consumes alcohol on a daily basis.
In addition, 28.8% consume alcohol weekly, 22.8% monthly, and 26.2% either 'never consumed' or 'hadn’t consumed any in the last 12 months'.
The report is based on information collected in 2019.
Period Consumption Of Alcohol
According to Eurostat, daily consumption of alcohol increases with age.
The lowest share of those who consumed alcohol the most frequently (i.e. every day) was recorded among those aged 15 to 24 (1.0%), while the highest share was in people of 75 or over (16.0%).
However, the latter age group also accounted for the highest share that never consumed alcohol or had not consumed any in the past 12 months (40.3%).
Weekly alcohol consumption was steady across all age groups between 25 and 64; the highest share found among people aged 45 to 54 (33.5%).
Monthly and 'less than once a month' consumption slightly decreased with age, and correspondents aged between 25 and 34 recorded the highest share of those that consumed alcohol monthly (28.5%).
Country By Country
On a country-by-country basis, daily alcohol intake was the most frequent in Portugal, with a fifth (20.7%) of the population consuming alcohol every day, followed by Spain (13.0%), and Italy (12.1%).
In contrast, the lowest share was around 1.0% in Latvia and Lithuania.
In the Netherlands, almost half of the population (47.3%) consume alcohol on a weekly basis, closely followed by Luxembourg (43.1%) and Belgium (40.8%).
Monthly consumption in the EU was the highest in Lithuania (31.3%), followed by Latvia (31.1%), and Cyprus (30.4%).
Among the EU Member States, Croatia reported the highest share of the population (38.3%) who never consumed alcohol or had not consumed any in the last 12 months.
Gender Breakdown
In terms of gender breakdown, daily and weekly consumption of alcohol were more common for men than for women (respectively 13.0% of men vs. 4.1% of women and 36.4% of men vs. 21.7% of women).
In all EU Member States, men consumed alcohol more frequently than women.
The largest gender gaps were found in Portugal (33.4% vs. 9.7%) and Spain (20.2% vs. 6.1%) in terms of daily consumption, and in Romania (32.2% vs. 6.6%) and Slovakia (30.6% vs. 8.8%) in terms of weekly consumption.
However, proportions of monthly intake were fairly equal between sexes.
Across all the European countries, women accounted for a significantly higher share of individuals that never consumed alcohol or had not consumed any in the last 12 months.
Episodic Drinking
According to Eurostat, heavy episodic drinking is defined as ingesting the equivalent of more than 60g of pure ethanol on a single occasion.
Among the EU Member States, between 4% (Cyprus and Italy) and 38% (Denmark) of adults reported taking part in heavy drinking episodes at least once a month.
Among these, the majority did so every month, while a smaller proportion engaged in the behaviour at least once a week.
© 2021 European Supermarket Magazine. Article by Conor Farrelly. For more Drinks news, click here. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
