South Korean Twentysomethings Turn Away From Drinking as Bar Payments Plunge 52% in Three Years

South Korea’s twentysomethings are pulling away from ordinary bars. Their number of bar payment transactions fell 52% over three years, a much steeper decline than among older age groups.

NH NongHyup Bank said transactions at ordinary bars fell 34% in the first half of this year compared with the first half of 2023. The total value of those payments dropped 30%. The bank based its analysis on 127 million transactions by 7.38 million individual customers using its cards.

The decline reached 35% among customers in their 30s, 40% among those in their 40s and 24% among those in their 50s. By contrast, transactions by customers aged 60 and above increased 9%. This group accounted for one in every five ordinary-bar payments in the first half of this year.

NH NongHyup said the figures confirmed the drinking-avoidance trend commonly associated with the MZ generation. Transactions declined more sharply later at night: payments made between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. fell 29% from three years earlier, while those made after midnight dropped 42%. The bank attributed the pattern to a growing preference for heading home early instead of continuing to second- and third-round gatherings.

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The drinking-avoidance trend commonly associated with the MZ generation has been confirmed in the data.