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Title: Dying to be Equal? Women's Work, Smoking, and the Growing Gap in U.S. - European Female Life Expectancy

Citation Type: Conference Paper

Publication Year: 2017

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Abstract: Since 1980 a growing gap has emerged between female life expectancy in the U.S. and much of Europe. In the late 1970s, American women lived as long as women in France, Spain, and Italy; today, women in those countries live about 4.5 years longer than do American women. This paper considers the reasons for this growing longevity gap. In the first part of the paper, we examine causes of death to determine proximate reasons for the growing disparity. We show that the emergence of the life expectancy gap is associated with increasing smoking-related deaths among U.S. women. Using national health surveys across multiple countries, we document that U.S. women began smoking three to four decades before European women. The second part of the paper explores possible explanations for the early smoking initiation of American women. We find that smoking increases are closely tied to women working. In areas and time periods where more women work, smoking rates increase.

Url: https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2017/preliminary/1334?page=10&per-page=50

User Submitted?: No

Authors: Brainerd, Elizabeth; Cutler, David

Conference Name: ASSA Annual Meeting

Publisher Location: Chicago, IL

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Fertility and Mortality, Gender, Health, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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