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Smoking hurts wealth as well as health
January
2007
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Smoking just one to four cigarettes a day almost triples a smoker's risk of heart disease and lung cancer. The impact is stronger for women. |
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Maybe packs of cigarettes should come with a new warning: |
Maybe packs of cigarettes should come with a new warning:
"Smoking is hazardous to your wealth."
A study suggests that typical non-smokers' net worth is roughly 50 percent higher than that of light smokers and about twice the level of that of heavy smokers.
And that wealth gap grows by about $410, or 4 percent, each year that a person continues to smoke, said the author of the study and a research scientist at Ohio State University's Center for Human Resource Research.
Federal statistics on cigarette spending suggest that the wealth reductions are roughly equal to how much smokers spend on their habit.
We don't have any direct proof, but taking the study results and the federal statistics together, it seems that the money smokers spend on cigarettes comes out of income that normally would be saved.
It may be that smokers spend as much as others on everything else, and pay for smoking out of potential savings.
The study was published in the current issue of the journal Tobacco Control. The study used data involving about 8,900 people who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which is funded primarily by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The NLSY is a nationally representative survey of people nationwide conducted by Ohio State's Center for Human Resource Research.
The people in this study were interviewed in 1985, 1992, 1994, and 1998 about a variety of issues, including smoking and wealth.
In this study, light smokers were defined as those who reported smoking less than a pack a day on average, while heavy smokers used more than a pack a day. Wealth included home values, cash savings, stocks, bonds, and auto values, among other assets. Outstanding debts were subtracted from that total.
The participants in this study were between 33 and 40 years old in 1998, the last year of this study. By that time in their lives, they had not accumulated much wealth. The average net worth of all participants in 1998 was about $50,000.
| While it was obvious that smokers had less wealth,
smokers also tend to come from lower socioeconomic
categories, which may influence how much wealth they accumulate. So
the analysis of the data taking into account many factors that may
influence wealth, including education, race, and even income. Even after these factors are taken into account, heavy smokers had a net worth that was about $8,300 less than non-smokers, while light smokers' net worth was about $2,000 lower. |
In 2001, the typical smoker spent $715 per year on tobacco products.
Multiplying this by the 7.5 years young baby boomers typically have smoked
shows that the average baby boomer has spent more than $5,300 during their
adult life on this habit. This figure is roughly right between the amount
net worth falls for light smokers vs. heavy smokers, he said.
The authors noted that the participants in this study were relatively young
adults, with the oldest being 40 years old when the study concluded. That
suggests the wealth gap could grow even larger if smokers continue their
habit.
Every year of smoking causes net worth to fall by almost 4 percent, so the
effects add up over the years the
authors said. Since the typical family in the
United States currently has relatively little wealth and saves relatively
little money, the financial implications are clear – if you smoke and want
to increase your wealth, stop smoking.
Smoking just one to four cigarettes a day almost triples a smoker's risk of heart disease and lung cancer, reveals another large study in Tobacco Control.
The impact is stronger for women, the study shows, and quashes the
cherished notion that "light" smokers escape the serious health problems
faced by heavier smokers.
The researchers tracked the health and death rates of almost 43,000 men and
women from the mid 1970s up to 2002. All the participants were aged between
35 and 49 at the start of the study, when they were screened for
cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Although a significant proportion of the light smokers increased their daily
consumption, this had not exceeded 9 cigarettes a day. And almost as many
had given up as had increased their consumption.
Taking account of risk factors likely to influence the findings, the data
nevertheless showed that light smoking endangered health. The steepest risk
occurred between nought and four cigarettes a day.
Compared with those who had never smoked, those who smoked between 1 and 5
cigarettes a day were almost three times as likely to die of coronary artery
disease.
While there was little difference in the risk of dying from any type of
cancer, this was not the case for lung cancer.
| Men who were light smokers were almost three times as
likely to be killed by lung cancer. And women were almost five times
as likely to die of the disease as their non-smoking peers. Light smokers also had significantly higher death rates from all causes - 1.5 times - than those who had never smoked, with the death rates corresponding to the number of cigarettes smoked every day. |
As the light smokers had smoked for fewer years than the heavy smokers,
the researchers analysed the projected impact of smoking at this level for
five years.
This indicated that the risk of death from coronary artery disease would
have been 7% higher, and the risk of lung cancer would have been 47% higher
in women.
Bibliography:
- Ohio State University's Center for Human Resource Research
- Tobacco Control
- World Health Organization
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