A wide gender gap in drinking has emerged among Greek adults, according to new figures from Eurostat. Greek men drink alcohol daily at almost twice the rate of Greek women, and the divide grows even larger once weekly habits are counted.
The 2025 data, covering people aged 16 and older, show that 5 percent of men in Greece drink every day, compared with 2.7 percent of women. Weekly drinking follows a similar pattern. Just over 24 percent of men said they drink at least once a week, while only 11.7 percent of women reported the same. Added together, men in Greece drink daily or weekly at roughly double the rate of women.
Age and income fail to close the divide in Greece
The gender gap in drinking among Greek men and women does not close with age. Between 35 and 49, men were more than twice as likely as women to drink daily. The gap was narrowest among the youngest adults, aged 16 to 24, where 4 percent of men and 3.5 percent of women said they drink daily.
In 2025, 4.8% of people aged 16 or over in the EU consumed alcohol every day. 🍷
🔸 56.5% of men consumed alcohol at least every month, compared with 35.9% for women.
Explore more in ‘Key figures on European living conditions – 2026 edition' 👉https://t.co/UaK8OOqep6 pic.twitter.com/ms2YyNoqex
— EU_Eurostat (@EU_Eurostat) September 28, 2026
Income does not appear to explain the difference. Among Greeks classified as “at risk of poverty or social exclusion,” men still drink weekly far more often than women, at 24.4 percent versus 10.6 percent. A similar gap appears among those not facing financial hardship, pointing to a divide tied more to gender than income.
Greek gender gap in drinking compared with the rest of Europe
Greece’s pattern is not unusual within the European Union, though some countries show sharper contrasts. Across the 27-nation bloc, men drink daily at nearly three times the rate of women, a wider gap than in Greece.
Portugal recorded the highest daily drinking rate in the EU, and its gender gap is also among the widest, with men there drinking daily at almost four times the rate of women. Bulgaria and Romania show even steeper divides between men and women.
Northern Europe tells a different story. In Sweden, men drink weekly at just under one and a half times the rate of women, one of the smaller gaps in the data. France also shows a narrower divide, since women there drink more often overall than in most other EU countries.
Researchers point out that daily drinking remains fairly rare across Europe, but weekly habits reveal the clearest and most consistent gender split, a pattern found from southern Europe to the Nordic countries.
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