Gender equity and male and female smoking behavior

Abstract

We document a positive relationship between culturally inherited beliefs about gender equity and female smoking, using data on first and second-generation immigrants living in the United States. We find that a one standard deviation increase in our measure of gender equity is associated with an increase in the probability that a female immigrant smokes of approximately 1.4 and 1.8 percentage points or 23% and 20% for first and second-generation immigrants respectively. As male smoking behavior is largely unaffected by gender equality, we find that gender equity tends to reduce the size of the gender gap in smoking.