Catching the habit: a study of inequality of opportunity in smoking-related mortality∗

This paper investigates inequality in smoking-related mortality risk, focusing on the intergenerational transmission of smoking. We estimate a latent factor model for smoking initiation, cessation and mortality risk using the British Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS), and present results from a counterfactual approach to inequality of opportunity. Parental smoking lowers the age at starting by about 2 years, increases smoking duration by about 12 years and lowers median lifespan by about 5 years. The health gain from not smoking is about 13 per cent in terms of mean survival probability and 5 per cent in terms of median predicted lifespan, a net gain of 3.4 years. JEL codes I1 C10 C41