Party like a grandpa? Sober as a student? Generations flip script on alcohol.

If you’re a college student trying to throw a blowout, you might want to look to your grandparents for inspiration. 

Conventional wisdom imagines young people, reveling in youthful energy and newfound independence, as the hardest partiers. But Generation Z and baby boomers are flipping the script.

The share of people ages 18 to 34 who say they drink fell from 73% in the early 2000s to 59% in 2024, according to Gallup. That’s the lowest youth-drinking rates have been this century. The drop, combined with an 18% increase in drinking rates among Americans over age 55 during the early 2000s, has brought the two groups’ rates of alcohol consumption nearly to parity. 

Megan Brenan, a senior editor at Gallup, says younger people’s declining drinking rates seem to be an enduring trend. “It’s been a pretty steady fall,” she says. “[It’s] pretty striking, given that, you know, in the early 2000s, that was the group that were the heavy drinkers.” 

Young adults increasingly shrugging at alcohol has driven drinking rates down to 58%, slightly below the historical average, even as alcohol consumption among other adults has held steady since 2010.

It’s not just college students and young adults, either. The share of eighth, 10th, and 12th grade students who drink has declined precipitously in the past several decades, according to the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future survey. In the same survey, high school seniors’ drinking rates halved between 1975 and 2024, falling to an all-time low of 42%.

Alcohol also seems to be falling out of favor in the court of public opinion – again, especially among younger Americans. In 2024, 65% of people ages 18 to 34 said that even moderate drinking is bad for health. That’s a 35 percentage point increase since 2001. Across all ages, a majority of Americans say that those who drink an “average” amount of alcohol should cut back.