The health risks of smoking are well documented but few are aware, of the unexpected economic toll smoking creates.
According to The Guardian, smokers are more likely to find harder to get work, and make less money than their non-smokers, as per a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers have found that unemployed non-smokers are not only 30pc more likely than smokers to be in work after a year, but also earn an extra $5 on average an hour than the smokers.
“We have known about the harmful health effects of tobacco use, and we have know that for now about 50 years,” said Judith Prochaska at Stanford University, who led the study.
“But here is evidence to show the financial harms of tobacco use, both with success in the workplace - in terms of being rehired - and then also potentially in the differential in pay that smokers versus non-smokers receive.”
The study consisted of 131 unemployed smokers and 120 unemployed non-smokers. The findings revealed, after one year, 56 percent of non-smokers had found work, while only 27 percent of smokers got work.
According to New Vision, Michael Baiocchi, the study co-author and an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford said, "We designed this study's analyses so that the smokers and nonsmokers were as similar as possible in terms of the information we had on their employment records and prospects for employment at baseline."
The reasons behind the difference remained a mystery. However, the study gives one possible factor i.e. spending priorities, when smokers were questioned about their spending priorities tobacco was placed at the top above outgoings including transport funds, mobile phone and grooming care.
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