Smokers, especially those the least educated, earn their lives less well.
- An increase in one unit in the number of packets-years is associated with a decrease of 1.8 % of income.
- An increase in one unit in the number of years causes a decrease of 0.5 % in the number of years of employment.
- The negative correlation between the number of years and employment among the least educated people appears only in current smokers.
As we know: smoking increases the risk of various cancers, respiratory problems and cardiovascular disease. Smoking is also associated with a lesser professional success, potentially because of its negative impact on labor productivity, in particular in physically demanding jobs, because it negatively affects physical condition and performance. Stigmatization around smoking can also induce prejudice and discrimination against smokers.
The number of packets-years, a standard measure of the cumulative exposure to tobacco
To achieve this conclusion, researchers from the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) used the data of a cohort, called “cardiovascular risk in young finns”, which relates to 3,596 adults, born between 1962 and 1977, from zones urban and rural of five Finnish university regions. They connected this information to the long -term results on the labor market for Finland Statistics and data on parental history. The observation period concerned 1,953 people aged 24 to 39.
The levels of smoking were determined by the number of cigarette packets in 2001. This is a standard measure of the exposure cumulative tobacco, obtained by multiplying the average number of smoked cigarettes daily by age of the person less the age at which they started to smoke. A person having smoked 10 packets-years, for example, smoked a pack of cigarettes per day for 10 years. “Annual income and the professional situation were followed from 2001 to 2019”, Can we read in the work published in the review Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
The more you smoke, the less likely you are to have high income
According to the results, an increase in one unit in the number of dodges is linked to a 1.8 % decrease in income. This suggests that a reduction in smoking of the equivalent of five years could lead to an increase in income by 9 %. In addition, the authors noted that an increase in one unit in the number of dodges caused a 0.5 % drop in the number of years of employment. “This association was pronounced in participants with a low level of education. The difference in income was obvious in the youngest, while a negative correlation with employment was observed more strongly in older volunteers, among the people with a lower level of education. “
According to scientists, this research highlights the need to put in place political measures which attack the hidden economic costs of smoking and which encourage behavior “healthier”.
