'Youth-led revolution': Aussie teens are abstaining from alcohol, study finds

Aussie teens are drinking less compared to previous generations, a new study shows. Researchers labelled them the "sober generation.”

A new study that involved over 41,000 Australian teenagers has found a significant decline in alcohol consumption among adolescents over the last decade. High school non-drinkers are now the norm.

The findings come despite the country being known for its drinking culture. The study, conducted by Deakin University researchers, revealed that the attitude of parents significantly influences attitudes of school-age children to alcoholic drinks.

Researchers asked teens in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia between 1999 and 2015. Young people were asked questions like “how easy would it be for you if you wanted to get some alcohol or cigarettes?” The study was published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Review.

Nearly 70 percent of teens said they had already drunk a full glass of alcohol in 2000. That figure had dropped to 45 percent in 2015. This means the majority of high school students in Australia are abstaining from alcohol.

Teens must be thankful to their parents for limiting supply and for being better educated about the harmful effects of alcohol. Study author John Toumbourou, who described the trend as a “youth-led revolution,” said it ends up that parents' attitudes are a big thing.

The majority of Aussie teens are reporting that their parents did not think young people still attending school should be drinking at all. According to Toumbourou, many of the change had to do with the messages parents received from around 2004 and onwards. He noted that the media have been advising parents not to provide alcohol as they look at its harmful effects on the brain.

Speaking with the Sydney Morning Herald, Toumbourou said adolescents had shown the most dramatic signs of alcohol moderation among any other generation. He is among those calling for the country’s legal drinking age to be raised to 21. There was reportedly recent scientific evidence that the brain does not fully mature until people are well into their 20s.

More young people are abstaining from drugs and sex, too. A rising number of teens have not tried tobacco, cannabis, inhalants and sedatives, according to surveys by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

Meanwhile in the US, the number of students aged 14-18 who reported they were sexually experienced dropped from 54 percent to 41 percent since 1991. America’s teenage birth rate dropped at that time.