Young people drank less alcohol in 2020
2020. Remember? At the beginning of that year, the corona crisis started. The virus directly or indirectly affected our lives. The young people also had to deal with the measures that were used to curb the virus. The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) recently presented the Annual Report National Youth Monitor. This shows how our young people fared in that first corona year.
In contrast to smoking and cannabis, the percentage of young people who drank alcohol decreased in 2020. Young adults in particular, especially girls aged 12 to 18, drank less alcohol due to the corona measures in the catering industry. Young men aged 18 to 25 will also drink less in 2020.
| Alcohol and young people in 2020: that's how it is
A large majority of the over 15s occasionally drink alcohol, while a minority use tobacco, cannabis or other drugs. In relative terms, therefore, more people are affected by alcohol use: of the total population aged 15 and over, 12 percent said they have started drinking less or have stopped drinking, and 6 percent said they have started drinking more than before the crisis. |
Other interesting outcomes
It is not only in the field of alcohol & drugs that a number of conclusions can be drawn. Below is a summary of a number of interesting results from Statistics Netherlands' Annual Report on the National Youth Monitor.
-Because homeschooling made it more difficult to administer tests, eighth-year-olds did not take a final test and their final advice was lower on average than in previous years. The share of repeat students in upper secondary education was also lower than in the previous year.
-In 2020, more students entered secondary education and almost all final exam candidates obtained their diploma.
-Due to the high success rates and because fewer young people took a gap year, more young people went to study.
-Although young adults were generally happy and satisfied with their lives in 2020, as in previous years, this percentage decreased slightly compared to 2019. In 2020, 84 percent of young adults said they are generally happy and 81 percent were satisfied with their lives. In 2019 this was 88 percent and 86 percent respectively.
-The report also shows that for the first time since the introduction of the Youth Act in 2015, the number of young people receiving youth care has fallen: from 444,000 in 2019 to 429 thousand in 2020. However, the number of reports of child abuse did increase.
Sources: cbs.nl/statistische-trends and cbs.nl/nieuws
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