Raise cigarette prices to curb smoking among China’s poor, academic says, after study links poverty and tobacco consumption

More than 23 per cent of households with at least one smoker are poverty-stricken – double that of those where no one smokes – a national study finds
Their health was worse than non-smokers’, yet they don’t accept research on tobacco’s ill-effects. Raising cigarette prices would reduce smoking, academic says

China economy

Mandy Zuoin Shanghai

Published: 8:15pm, 1 Jan 2021

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If you are poor in China, you are more likely to smoke, a study by Beijing Normal University shows.

Researchers found more than 23 per cent of households with at least one smoker were poverty-stricken, which was double that of non-smokers.

Lead researcher Professor Jin Chenggang said the current prices for a packet of cigarettes, which can be as low as 2 yuan (30 US cents), is too low. According to a 2018 report by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, half of the smokers in the country spent less than 10 yuan for each packet of cigarettes they consumed.

If the price were increased, and tobacco producers taxed more heavily, it would deter low-income people from smoking – and have numerous positive knock-on effects, he believes.

A chef lights up a cigarette in Beijing. The link between poverty and propensity to smoke is not unique to China. Photo: AFP

Tobacco use significantly impacts a family’s income because of increased health care costs, as well as its effect on the capacity of people suffering chronic lung or heart diseases to work, the study found.

The link between poverty and propensity to smoke is not unique to China – it is reflected in many parts of the world.

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According to the World Health Organisation, smoking increases poverty, and the poor tend to smoke more than wealthy people.

A 2014 study in the United States found smoking was increasingly a habit of the poor and working class. Affluent areas of the US had experienced the biggest and fastest declines in smoking rates, while poor communities found it hard to quit, The New York Times reported.

The Chinese study involved 4,749 people aged over 40 from families in underdeveloped areas of central, northwest, northeast and southwest China, covering the provinces of Hebei, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou and Shaanxi. Those in poor areas had a 34.2 per cent smoking rate compared to the national average of 26.6 per cent.

A homeless woman in Hefei, Anhui province. According to the WHO, smoking increases poverty. Photo: AFP

Their health was also worse. The rate of people who required hospital treatment in the past year was 50 per cent higher for smokers than non-smokers.

“During my field research in rural areas, I found that the major breadwinner in nearly every poverty-stricken family smokes or drinks alcohol. It’s often the rich who pay more attention to their health,” Jin said.

He said low-income people do not believe scientific research showing smoking’s harmful effects.

A worker smokes a cigarette on a construction site in Beijing. The rate of people who were hospitalised in the past year was 50 per cent higher for smokers than non-smokers. Photo: AFP

The Chinese research comes at a time of increased discussion about the issue of poverty. Chinese President Xi Jinping claimed in December that poverty had been eliminated, but many families are still unable to afford basic medicine and health care.

According to data from the National Health Commission, of all the families registered with the government as poverty-stricken, over 40 per cent fell into poverty because of illness.