Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Mood-Altering Drugs

Women and Smoking

Statisitics on Women and Smoking

About 21% of women smoke, but this can vary depending on age, race/ethnicity, income, education, occupation, sexual orientation, and mental and physical ability.   The chart below shows the percentage of current women smokers 18 years and older, by selected characteristics, according to the U.S. National Health Interview Survey performed in 2002.

Characteristic	Women (n=17,374)
Race/Ethnicity
White, non-Hispanic	22
Black, non-Hispanic	19
Hispanic	11
American Indian/Alaskan Native	41
Asian	7
Education
0-12 yrs (no diploma)	24
<8 years	14
9-11 years	31
12 years (no diploma)	30
GED (diploma)	37
12 years (diploma)	22
Associate degree	20
Some college (no degree)	22
Undergraduate degree	11
Graduate degree	6
Age group (years)
18-24	25
25-44	23
45-64	21
65+	9
Poverty level
At or above	20
Below	30
Unknown	17
Total	20

Occupational Class, Sexual Orientation, and Ability

• The government does not report smoking rates by occupational class, sexual orientation or ability, however, there have been some studies that have collected and analyzed data on these characteristics. 
  
  
• A recent study found that 33% of blue collar women and 32 % of female service workers smoke vs. 20% of white collar women.
  
  
• Another study concluded that nearly a third of lesbians and a half of bisexual women report being current smokers.
  
  
• A survey conducted in Massachusetts found that 26% of adults with disabilities smoke as compared to 19% of adults without disabilities.

Young Women

• Smoking rates among male and female high school students are nearly the same at about 22% each. Although smoking prevalence had increased among high school students during the 1990s, it has decreased since 1997.

International Women’s Smoking

• Globally, men smoke more than women, although this varies greatly by country.  In higher income, industrialized countries, women and men have more similar smoking rates, while in lower income countries, women have much lower rates of smoking.  However, these lower rates of smoking among women in countries such as China, Cyprus, Korea etc, may be on the increase, as younger women take up smoking at alarming rates.  Also, the tobacco industry has launched aggressive marketing campaigns targeting women in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa.  In many lower income countries, women do not smoke Western cigarettes, but traditional forms of tobacco use, such as chewing betel nut, or smoking hand rolled bidis is pervasive and thought to be healthy.  The World Health Organization has written a report entitled “Women and the Tobacco Epidemic:  Challenges for the 21st Century” that discusses women and tobacco issues from an international perspective.  It is available online. You can find the following table and other information about smoking prevalence on page 64 of the report.
  

SMOKING PREVALENCE BY SOCIO-ECONOMIC STATUS, GENDER, AND NUMBER OF SMOKERS  AGED 15 OR MORE, 1995
	Smoking Prevalence (%)			Number of Smokers	Total Smokers
Socio-economic Level	Male	Female	Overall	(millions)	(% of all smokers)
Low/Middle	49	10	30	948	82
High	39	22	30	209	18
World	47	12	30	1157	100

A detailed report of the Surgeon General on Women and Smoking, published in 2001, is available online.  This report contains extensive information on many of the issues related to women and smoking, including data on smoking prevalence.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks smoking patterns in the U.S by gender, age, race/ethnicity, income and education and reports on them periodically.  You can find out the most current information by visiting their website. 

Companion Pages:  1  2 

Written by: Our Bodies Ourselves
Last revised: March 2008

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