The Decline of Smoking in China from 1989 to 2009: Shifting Composition or Behavior?

Weixiang Luo, Fudan University

It has been reported that smoking among Chinese men declined significantly over recent decades. We assess this trend and track factors contributing to it. We use the triple standardization method, focusing on whether changes in smoking are due to shifts in the composition of men (i.e., age structure, education, and residence) or due to shifts in the inclinations of men to smoke. A decline in smoking among Chinese men is found to be a real historical change and not an artifact of survey methodology. Shift in the inclinations of men to smoke, more specifically, the decrease in the proportion of men who have ever smoked, accounts for the most of the decline. The contributions of changes in the composition of men are small.