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Nicole Tan

The only time Jolene Mak Pui-ying ever drank alcohol was by accident.
“I thought it was a cup of Ribena, [a blackcurrant-based soft drink],” the 20-year-old says, “but it was actually red wine.”
Not only does she not enjoy the taste, Mak – who studies computer science at Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) – also thinks drinking alcohol is not necessary to have a good time.
Sophie Robertson, 19, agrees. She tried drinking for a few months but decided it was not for her, especially after years of watching beer drinkers go wild at Hong Kong’s annual Rugby Sevens tournaments, and waiting in queues for toilets with nauseous partygoers.

“I just didn’t find that [drinking] made things better or more fun,” says Robertson, who graduated from Hong Kong International School in 2022. “I was still able to have a lot of fun with my friends, completely sober.”
Mak and Robertson – born in 2002 and 2004, respectively – are part of Generation Z, which loosely includes people born between 1995 and 2010. And, according to population surveys, it seems that these two are not alone: Hong Kong’s Gen Z are turning away from drinking alcohol.
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The Hong Kong government defines binge drinking as having more than five glasses of alcoholic beverages within a few hours.
In a 2014-15 population health survey conducted by the Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection, 12.9 per cent of respondents between the ages of 15 and 24 said they binge drank in the 12 months before the survey. This number rose to 15.3 per cent in the 2018-19 survey, before dropping to 3.6 per cent in the 2020-22 survey.
This decline does not surprise CUHK Professor Jean Kim, whose recent research focused on young adults in Hong Kong aged 18-34 and the factors associated with their drinking behaviours.

“Drinking is very much a social activity in Chinese culture,” Kim says. “So with less face-to-face socialising, this will dampen drinking behaviours.”
Hong Kong faced longer restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic than most places, forcing many people who might otherwise have frequented nightlife areas such as the city’s popular Lan Kwai Fong entertainment district to stay at home. Curbs on opening hours for bars were only lifted at the end of 2022.
As a result, young people who normally would have been drinking could not, and events that frequently initiate drinking – university orientations, club outings – did not happen, Kim says.

Gen Z was also born into a world of internet-based social interactions and social media that did not exist for millennials – members of Generation Y, born in the 1980s and the early 1990s – until they were in their late teens.
In her research, Kim found a prevalence of alcohol-related content and advertisements on Hong Kong young adults’ social media that users can share, like and comment on, from ads depicting high-class clubs with patrons dressed to the nines, to users posting photos of drinking with friends.
“People who did not even participate in the real-world event can still ‘virtually’ participate,” Kim says. She believes some of this online social activity may serve to substitute for real-world activity.

Social media also means there is constant surveillance of Gen Z’s every move, according to LifeClinic psychotherapist Elena Kisel, who specialises in mental health and substance use treatment.
“It’s almost like a social barrier that reinforces their awareness around the behaviours that they will engage in,” she says, “because they’re constantly transmitting what they’re doing every hour of the day.”
More broadly, the decline in Gen Z’s binge drinking may also suggest a shift in preferences. Kisel says people may be turning to other drugs, such as cannabis and LSD, instead of alcohol, especially when discussions surrounding drug use have become more relaxed.
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It could also reflect a larger trend of health and wellness.
Robertson, who picked up weightlifting two years ago, says fitness is a big part of her life – “and alcohol doesn’t really fit into that for me”.
Kisel says she has seen a decline in the preference for alcohol, particularly with the younger female population. Some see alcohol as “empty calories”.
While binge drinking has gone down – across all age groups, according to Kim, but particularly in Gen Z – it seems that demand for non-alcoholic beverages has gone up.

Antonio Lai, a bartender and co-founder of Tastings Group, started developing spirit-free cocktails at Quinary eight years ago.
Back then, the bar had only three non-alcoholic cocktail selections; now it has eight. The most popular on the menu is the alcohol-free version of Lai’s Earl Grey Caviar Martini, which has apple, elderflower, lemon, lime and cucumber, topped with Earl Grey “caviar” and foam.
The number of spirit-free drinks ordered at Quinary also increased by eight to nine per cent between 2018 and 2023.

Lai says ever more people are enjoying the low- and no-alcohol lifestyle. “The trend was definitely changing before [the pandemic],” the bartender adds, “but Covid also helped to push it along.”
Lai hopes the number of bar-goers will slowly return to pre-pandemic levels, but Kim suggests that the effects of Covid-19 on Gen Z’s drinking behaviours may be long-lasting.
“At the end of the day, the lifestyle of Hong Kong people has changed,” Lai says. “The patterns will not be like before.”
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Sophie Robertson, who picked up weightlifting two years ago, says fitness is a big part of her life and that drinking alcohol doesn’t fit with that. Photo: Sophie Robertson

Customers drink wine in Hong Kong’s Lan Kwai Fong nightlife district. Some in Gen Z - those born in or after 2000 - drink little alcohol, others none at all. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

Fans drinking beer at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens tournament in 2022. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

Jean Kim is a professor at CUHK. Photo: CUHK

Hongkongers who might have gone to entertainment hubs such as Lan Kwai Fong (above) for a night out stayed home during the pandemic. Curbs on opening hours for bars were only lifted at the end of 2022. Photo: Sam Tsang

Fans at the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens in 2022. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Robertson, who picked up weightlifting two years ago, says fitness is a big part of her life. Photo: Sophie Robertson

The Hong Kong government defines binge drinking as having more than five glasses of alcoholic beverages within a few hours. Latest figures show a sharp drop in binge drinking among the 15-to-24 age group. Photo: Shutterstock

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Quinary’s Antonio Lai and Nana Chan at Plantation Tea Bar. Quinary launched a tea cocktail, the Earl Grey Caviar Martini, more than a decade ago. Now Lai has created six for Chan’s newly renovated bar. Photo: Plantation Tea Bar

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Young people describe why they shun alcoholic drinks, and experts suggest why there is a move away from alcohol among Gen Z, from drinking less to none at all
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