Association of smoking and drinking with socioeconomic factors: A comparative study based on bivariate probit model analysis

In this study, we examined the differences between smoking and drinking in regard to their associations with socioeconomic factors among about 7,000 Japanese workers. Using microdata from nationwide surveys in Japan, we estimated bivariate probit models to jointly explore how smoking and drinking are related to a wide variety of socioeconomic factors. We found that only educational attainment is consistently and negatively associated with both smoking and drinking for both genders. The associations with other socioeconomic factors are not uniform between smoking and drinking and between men and women. A notable finding is that smoking is more sensitive than drinking to daily or continuous stress related to one's jobs and perceptions of one's income class, especially among men.