Single-person households spend more on alcohol: report

South Korea’s single-person households proportionally spent more on purchasing alcoholic beverage than households with two or more people last year, a report showed Sunday.

According to the Korea Rural Economic Institute’s report that analyzed the Statistics Korea’s data from 2021, single-person households made up 10.6 percent of the total processed food spending on alcoholic beverage whereas households with two or more people made up 7.3 percent.

The report showed that younger people living alone were the most avid alcohol consumers as single-person households in their 20s and 30s spent 15.6 percent of total processed food spending on buying alcohol, the biggest proportion among all household types by age.

For single-person households, beer was ranked the fourth-highest on the purchased list of processed food products with the biggest spending proportions at 5.1 percent, following bread, snacks and frozen foods. Korean distilled liquor soju placed 12th at 3.0 percent.

The report said the monthly spending on alcoholic beverages has steadily increased to 17,449 won ($14), up 11.3 percent on year. Between 2010 and 2021, the average annual growth rate of alcoholic beverage spending was 7 percent, it added.

The type of drink also varied depending on the household’s income, according to the report.

Households in the upper 20-percentile spent more on buying beer than the lower 20-percentile. On the other hand, households in the lower 20-percentile spent more on soju than those in the upper 20-percentile.

Refined grains, such as flour, rice and bread, took the biggest portion of processed food spending at 20.6 percent, regardless of the size or income level of households, the report showed.