Young people, alcohol and risk: A Culture of Caution

Since the turn of the millennium, substantial declines have occurred in the alcohol consumption of teenagers across numerous countries. This includes rising rates of abstention and declining prevalence of lifetime alcohol use, recent alcohol use (within the past year, month, and week), and heavy episodic alcohol use. The authors examine these trends in Chapter 2.

For example, high-income countries, including Australia, Sweden, England, Canada, the USA, and most of Northern Europe (excluding Denmark), as well as some Eastern and Southern European nations such as Estonia, Lithuania, and Malta, have seen substantial reductions in past-month alcohol use, ranging from 23 per cent to 74 per cent. The authors note that the most significant declines occurred in Northern Europe and the UK (where baseline rates were highest), while Eastern and Southern European countries saw more modest declines, or no declines at all.

Structure of the Book

The book explores key factors contributing to the decline. Individual chapters focus on young people’s shifting attitudes toward alcohol, the growing importance of health among young people, evolving perceptions of risk, changes in parenting practices, the impact of digital technologies and new technologically-mediated forms of socialising, as well as how declines were experienced differently according to gender and social position. The authors also consider the implications for public health and future alcohol consumption trajectories.

Some readers may be surprised that other factors get less attention, such as national alcohol policy changes, substitution with other drugs, sudden economic changes, or immigration shifts. While these latter explanations were central to earlier hypotheses about the decline, the authors’ research – and that of others – suggests they are not strongly linked to the reductions in youth alcohol use observed in high-income countries.

Factors Shaping the Decline

A running theme of the book is how the possible explanations for the decline are interlinked with each other. For example, chapter 3 examines changing attitudes towards alcohol, including disapproval of alcohol use and the perceived harmfulness of alcohol. The authors note that negative attitudes toward alcohol have grown among young people. Rising disapproval of heavy alcohol consumption in particular appears to be a generational shift most evident among younger cohorts. Young people’s concerns around long-term health, stigma and mental health also seem to play into this heightened risk assessment. This supports the view that disapproval of regular or heavy alcohol use may form part of the wider generational views on alcohol among young people in high-income countries.

Health Consciousness

Increases in health consciousness, alongside awareness of the growing scientific evidence on the health harms of alcohol, may also be reshaping young people’s views towards alcohol. The authors discuss this in Chapter 4 in relation to healthist discourses that emphasise the importance of a healthy diet, exercise and minimising alcohol (and other substance use) as an individual responsibility. These discourses were present in the authors’ qualitative data, alongside concerns about the link between alcohol and mental health, and quantitative data showing a rise in mental health symptoms in many high-income countries. Like attitude changes towards alcohol, the authors suggest that health as a social practice has collectively spread into a generational emphasis on health consciousness.

‘Risky’ Activities

Chapter 5 focuses on risk, concerning both alcohol and other ‘risky’ activities. Data from numerous settings show that declines in crime, sexual behaviour, driving, smoking and other substance use among young people have paralleled declines in alcohol use. The chapter examines how young people seem to perceive drinking alcohol and intoxication as risky behaviours. This is especially true in public settings, where alcohol is linked to various health and social risks. The discussion is framed within a broader shift, wherein young people are increasingly concerned about managing risk and responsibility.

Family Relationships

Changing family relationships and how this might impact young people’s alcohol use is explored in Chapter 6. Generational shifts in broader parenting practices, particularly in relation to increased monitoring (sometimes through digital technologies), closer parent-child relationships, and more egalitarian relationships have occurred alongside reductions in parental supply of alcohol and more restrictive parental attitudes towards consumption. The authors note that alcohol use may no longer be the same symbol of rebellion against parents it once was. The intensification of parenting and focus on parental responsibility may have played a role in reshaping parenting practices in ways that influence youth alcohol consumption.

Digital Technologies

The paradox of alcohol and digital technologies is explored in Chapter 7. This includes shifts towards online leisure (e.g., gaming) instead of in-person socialising, and greater self-monitoring due to the ‘surveillance’ effect of smartphones (e.g., concerns around undesirable photos or videos being taken). Across the period of interest, many people have assumed these technologies are driving the decline in alcohol consumption. Yet, the authors highlight consistent findings in the research literature of a positive association between behaviours such as social media use and alcohol consumption among young people. They suggest an alternative explanation whereby digital technologies may mediate wider cultural and social norms around risk, while also acknowledging the difficulty of capturing the multitude of effects that the rapid advancement of technologies is likely to have had.

Gender and Social Position

In chapter 8, the authors take a closer look at young people’s social position, with particular attention to gender. Against the backdrop of alcohol consumption being an inherently gendered practice, changing ways of performing masculinity and femininity among young people are explored. The authors note that young people increasingly distance themselves from the gendered ‘edgework’ of previous generations, with traditional feminine drinking practices – emphasising care and restraint – gaining traction, even among young men. However, while traditional masculinities have been notably challenged and diversified, they look at how gender dichotomies still exist and shape perceptions of ‘acceptable’ and ‘risky’ alcohol consumption, particularly among women – although noting these norms may differ across countries.

Implications and the future of youth alcohol use

The final chapters of the book draw on theory, trends and policy analysis to explore several hypothetical questions. These include what we might anticipate for future trends in youth alcohol use, what the implications are for drinking cultures and trends in alcohol-related harms, what might be happening for young people in low and middle-income countries, and what the implications for policy might be. Using cohort data and longitudinal qualitative data, the authors also look at what we can expect as the ‘cautious generation’ grows up into young adulthood, including how different trajectories of abstention, light drinking and heavy drinking might play out in real world contexts as young people get older and gain independence.

Social Generations and Risk

This book contributes to the literature on declining youth alcohol consumption by offering a theoretical account that situates this trend within a broader socio-historical context, framing it as part of a generational shift toward caution and risk aversion. The decline in alcohol consumption is not isolated; young people today also report lower rates of illicit drug use, smoking, risky sex, youth crime, and dangerous driving. The authors argue that these patterns are interconnected, reflecting a broader repositioning of alcohol as a risk practice within youth culture. Drawing on theories of risk, social practice, and generational change, they suggest that contemporary young people are more cautious, with practices and views shaped by economic instability, global uncertainty, and neoliberal governance.

This shift does not negate young people’s agency; research suggests they are often more reflective and mature than previous generations. Rather, they are navigating a world that both enables and constrains them in new ways – one where the cultural logic underpinning heavy alcohol use has weakened in light of changing socio-economic pressures. Today’s youth are thus growing up in, and are shaped by, a culture of caution – a major shift from the culture of intoxication that shaped the lives of youth in the late 1990s.

The article is written by

Dr Amy Pennay (La Trobe University, Australia)

Dr Gabriel Caluzzi (La Trobe University, Australia)

Dr Laura Fenton (Sheffield University, UK)

Prof John Holmes (Sheffield University, UK)

Dr Michael Livingston (Curtin University, Australia)

Dr Jonas Raninen (Karolinska Institutet, Sweden) and

Prof Jukka Törrönen (Stockholm University, Sweden)

on the request of PopNAD.