Seoul: Cigarette smoking rates among men in their 30s have slumped by 19.5 percentage points over the past nine years amid steady declines among some other age groups, government data showed Thursday. The figure stood at 28.5 percent in 2024, compared with 48 percent in 2015, according to an annual nationwide survey conducted by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

According to Yonhap News Agency, the fall was sharper compared with a 16.1 percentage-point drop among men aged 19 to 29 and an 8.9 percentage-point decline among men in their 40s over the same period, according to the data. No significant changes were seen among men in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, according to the report.

Overall tobacco use, which includes smoking rates of e-cigarettes, showed a more gradual change. The figure came in at 40.1 percent last year for men in their 30s, slipping 4.9 percentage points from when the KDCA began releasing relevant data in 2019. The figure for men aged 19-29 fell 10.5 percentage points over the same period, according to the data. The narrow decline, compared with cigarette smoking rates, appeared to be attributable to increasing use of alternative products for traditional tobacco products, such as e-cigarettes.