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.