A shopper looks at a selection of whiskey at a large discount supermarket in Seoul on Jan. 12, 2022. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — In the third quarter of last year, which marked the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, single-person households consisting of young people under 40 years of age marked a sharp increase in their spending on drinking and smoking compared to a year earlier.
This group’s monthly spending for purchases of alcohol and cigarettes averaged 17,989 won (US$14.94) and 21,108 won, respectively, up 14.3 percent and 8.7 percent from a year before, according to the data from Statistics Korea.
Spending on alcohol does not mean money spent at bars, but money spent to drink at home by purchasing alcohol at convenience stores or discount stores.
Their monthly spending for the purchase of lottery tickets averaged 2,912 won, up 218.4 percent year on year. This figure represents a dramatic increase compared to the 41.6 percent growth for all households.
This figure was calculated by averaging the value of lottery ticket purchases for all sample households including those who did not buy lottery tickets at all.
Statistics Korea, however, noted that when it comes to single-person households of young people younger than 40, special consideration should be paid to the fact that the amount of money they spend on lottery tickets is insignificant, and the size of the sample itself is small.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
