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Relationships Between Teenage Smoking and Attitudes Toward Women's Rights, Sex Roles, Marriage, Sex and Family a

Ingrid Waldron PhD & Diane Lye PhD

b

a

Associate Professor, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania b

Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Washington Published online: 26 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Ingrid Waldron PhD & Diane Lye PhD (1990) Relationships Between Teenage Smoking and Attitudes Toward Women's Rights, Sex Roles, Marriage, Sex and Family, Women & Health, 16:3-4, 23-46, DOI: 10.1300/J013v16n03_03 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J013v16n03_03

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Relationships Between Teenage Smoking and Attitudes Toward Women's Rights, Sex Roles, Marriage, Sex and Family Ingrid Waldron, PhD Diane Lye, PhD

ABSTRACT. This study analyzes the relationships of cigarette smoking to attitudes toward equal opportunities for women, attitudes toward appropriate roles for women and men, and attitudes toward marriage, sex and family. Our analyses utilize data for white high school seniors from the 1985 Monitoring the Future national survey. Smoking was not related to attitudes toward equal opportunities for women, attitudes toward sex roles, or attitudes concerning the parental role. However, students who had favorable attitudes toward cohabitation by unmarried couples and unfavorable attitudes toward marriage were more likely to smoke than students who had more traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage. The association between smoking and non-traditional attitudes toward sex and marIngrid Waldron is Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. Diane Lye is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington. Address correspondence to lngrid Waldron, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6018. The data utilized in this paper were collected by Lloyd D. Johnston. Jerald G. Bachman and Patrick M. O'Malley of the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, and the data were made available by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. The research reported in this paper has been supported by funds from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Network on the Determinants and Consequences of Health-damaging and Health-promoting Behavior. We thank Drs. Abba Krieger and Paul Rosenbaum for their statistical advice. None of these institutions or individuals bears any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented in this paper. Women & Health, Vol. 16(3/4) 1990 O 1990 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

WOMEN & HEALTH

riage was observed for both females and males. Additional findings suggest that rejection of conventional values and acceptance of deviance contribute both to non-traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage and to teenage smoking, and this is one reason why non-traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage are assoc~atedwith smoking.

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INTRODUCTION

During the twentieth century in the United States and other Western countries, cigarette smoking among women has increased and gender differences in smoking have decreased (Fiore, Novotny, Pierce, Hatziandreu, Patel & Davis, 1989; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1980; Waldron, 1990). During this same period, women's employment has increased dramatically and women's legal and social status has improved. Based on these parallel trends, several authors have proposed that "women's emancipation" has been a major cause of the increase in women's smoking and the decrease in gender differences in smoking (e.g., US Dept HHS, 1980, p. 207; van Reek, 1984). The well-known Virginia Slims cigarette ads appeal to this presumed association between women's emancipation and women's smoking (Markle & Troyer, 1979). In this paper we review previous evidence and present new evidence to test the hypothesis that, among contemporary young women, those with more emancipated attitudes and behavior are more likely to smoke. To evaluate this hypothesis, it is important to note that women's emancipation is a broad concept that has been used to refer to a wide variety of attitudes and behavior. For example, women's emancipation includes attitudes and behavior related to changing sex roles, such as women's employment and men's participation in child care. Also relevant are attitudes and behavior in support of equal opportunities for women and the women's liberation movement as a political movement. In addition, women's emancipation includes non-traditional attitudes and behavior related to sex, marriage, and family. Previous research indicates that the different attitudes and behaviors included in women's emancipation may show different patterns of association with other variables. For example, an analysis of gender differences in attitudes has shown that females report more

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non-traditional attitudes toward sex roles and women's rights, but males report more non-traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage (Herzog & Bachman, 1982). Additional evidence indicates that, although there is an association between non-traditional attitudes toward sex roles and support for equal opportunities for women, these attitudes are not associated with non-traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage nor with actual involvement in premarital sex (Herzog & Bachman, 1982; Jessor, Costa, Jessor & Donovan, 1983). In this context, it seems likely that different components of "women's emancipation" may have differing relationships to women's smoking. This expectation is supported by the available evidence. This evidence, reviewed below, indicates that, among contemporary women, neither support for the women's liberation movement nor adoption of non-traditional sex roles contributes to smoking, but those who engage in non-traditional sexual or marital behavior are substantially more likely to smoke.' Data from the United States and Norway indicate that young women who identify with the women's liberation movement have not been more likely to smoke (Eide, 1983; U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1977). In fact, a comparison of participants and non-participants in organized Women's Day activities in Norway indicated that the participants were less likely to smoke daily and more likely to smoke "sometimes" (Eide, 1983). This apparent inverse relationship between activism in support of women's liberation and frequency of smoking could be due to ageconfounding in this sample of teenagers and adults, since teenagers may be more likely to participate in activism and teenagers generally smoke less frequently than adults (Johnston, O'Malley & Bachman, 1989). Thus, the available evidence indicates that support for the women's liberation movement is not associated with smoking more. Recent evidence also indicates that the adoption of traditional male roles does not significantly increase women's smoking. For example, national data for women in the United States indicate that labor force participation has little or no effect on women's smoking (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1985; Waldron & Lye, 1989a). Additional analyses of contemporary U.S. data in-

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WOMEN & HEALTH

dicate that employment in traditional male occupations does not increase women's smoking (Waldron & Lye, 1989a).' Thus, the available evidence indicates that adoption of traditional male roles does not increase women's smoking. In contrast, one aspect of women's emancipation does appear to be linked to smoking, namely involvement in non-traditional sexual and marital behavior. Women or teenage girls who have had early sexual experience or multiple sexual partners are substantially more likely to be smokers (Jessor et al., 1983; Pederson & Stavraky, 1987; Slattery, Robinson, Schuman et al., 1989; US Dept HEW, 1977). One study showed that these relationships remained strong in analyses that controlled for age, education, and several additional characteristics (Pederson & Stavraky, 1987). Thus, it appears that the association between non-traditional sexual behavior and smoking is not due to the confounding effects of socioeconomic status. Smoking is also substantially more common among divorced women and men than among married women and men, and this association remained strong in analyses that controlled for age, education and race (Waldron & Lye, 1989b). Divorced adults were more likely to have adopted smoking and less likely to have quit smoking than married adults. One reason why non-traditional sexual and marital behavior is associated with smoking may be that tolerance of deviance and rejection of conventional values may contribute both to non-traditionai sexual and marital behavior and to the adoption of smoking. A variety of evidence supports this/,hypothesis. Young people who are more Blerant of deviance anbless religious are more likely to engage in premarital intercourse'as teenagers and more likely to cohabit with a partner of the opposite sex to whom they are not married (Clayton & Voss, 1977; Jessor et al., 1983; Kantor & Zelnik, 1972; Macklin, 1978). Also, rebelliousness and rejection of conventional values predict greater likelihood of smoking adoption, increased smoking andlor decreased likelihood of quitting smoking (Chassin, Presson, Sherman, Corty & Olshavsky, 1984; Murray, Swan, Johnson & Bewley, 1983; Reynolds & Nichols, 1976; Stewart & Livson, 1966). Deviant behaviors such as use of illicit drugs or, for women, heavy drinking or becoming intoxicated, are associated both with smoking and with premarital sexual relations and

.

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cohabitation (Clayton & Voss, 1977;'Jessor et al., 1983; Klassen & Wilsnack, 1986; US Dept HHS, 1980; Wilsnack, 1988). In addition, available evidence indicates that personal characteristics, such as being less religious, contribute both to teenage smoking adoption and to increased risk of divorce (Waldron & Lye, 1989b). Thus, a variety of evidence indicates that the association between smoking and non-traditional sexual'and marital behavior is due, at least in part, to the effects of rejection of conventional values and a tendency toward deviance. In summary, current evidence indicates that, contrary to common hypotheses, neither support for the women's liberation movement nor adoption of traditional male roles increases smoking among contemporary women. However, women who engage in non-traditional sexual and marital behavior are substantially more likely to be smokers. One reason for this appears to be that tolerance of deviance and rejection of conventional values contribute both to non-traditional sexual and marital behavior and totthe adoption of smoking. One major limitation of current evidence is that very little information is available concerning relationships between smoking and attitudes related to women's emancipation. Aside from the previously discussed evidence that support for the women's liberation movement is not associated with smoking, there appears to be no published evidence concerning relationships between attitudes toward women's rights and sm&ing. ~vailableevidence concerning the relationships between attitudes toward sex roles and smoking is very limited and inconclusive. A Norwegian study suggested that smoking was associated with approval of the employment of mothers of small children and with the belief that fathers of small children should work less outside the home and spend more time at home (Eide, 1983). However, our calculations of chi-square tests for these data show. that neither of these associations was statistically significant, given the relatively small sample size (n = 201). We did not find any published evidence concerning the relationship of smoking to attitudes toward sex and marriage. The present study provides evidence concerning the relationships between smoking and a broad range of attitudes with respect to equal opportunities for women, sex roles, marriage, sex and family.

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To avoid potential confounding effects due to age or socioeconomic status, we use data for a narrow age range (high school seniors) and our analyses control for a measure of socioeconomic status (parents' education). We have analyzed data for males as well as females in order to test whether relationships differ by gender. In addition, we present preliminary evidence concerning the hypothesis that rejection of conventional values and a tendency toward deviance contribute to the observed association between teenage smoking and non-traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage.

SAMPLE AND METHODS The data for this study were obtained from the 1985 Monitoring the Future survey of high school seniors in the coterminous United States. Methods and sample characteristics have been described previously (Johnston, Bachman & O'Malley, 1986). Briefly, the sample was stratified by geographic area and by high school within geographic area. The response rate for students within sampled schools was about 84%(with most non-participation due to absence from school). In this study we have analyzed data for the white students only. Previous analyses have shown that, for this sample of students, the relationships between smoking and variables such as gender or parents' education differ between whites and blacks (Waldron & Lye, 1990c; Waldron, Lye & Brandon, 1990). In addition, there are significant racial differences in many of the attitude variables included in this study. For example, white students had more favorable attitudes toward traditional marriage, while black students had more favorable attitudes toward women's employment and the parental role (data not shown). These observations suggest that it would be inappropriate to group whites and blacks together in the analyses. We have not analyzed data for the black students separately, because sample sizes for the blacks were relatively small and because other problems limit the reliability of black-white comparisons in this data set (Johnston et al., 1986). We also have not analyzed data for students of "other races" due to limited sample sizes and the heterogeneity of this category. In the Monitoring the Future survey, five different questionnaire

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forms were administered, each to about one-fifth of the students. Certain items, such as the smoking variables, were included in all five questionnaire forms. However, each of the attitude variables used in this study was included in only one questionnaire form. Since each of our analyses included an attitude variable, each analysis was necessarily restricted to the subsample of students who had completed a specific questionnaire form (referred to herein as subsamples 1-5). The number of white males in each subsample varied between 1132 and 1174, and the number of white females in each subsample varied between 1227 and 1274. The number of respondents included in each analysis is somewhat less than the total number of respondents in the subsample because a respondent was excluded from an analysis if he or she had missing data for any item included in the analysis either as an individual item or as a component of a scale. Tables 1-4 give the number of respondents included in each analysis. The wording and response distribution of each item in the survey have been published (Johnston et al., 1986). The item numbers given.in that publication are included in our descriptions of the variables used in this study. Smoking experience was assessed by a "smoking scale" which was derived from responses to two questions concerning previous and current smoking experience (items B01 and B02). Higher values on the smoking scale reflected greater experience with smoking. Specifically, the smoking scale was set equal to 1 if the student had never smoked a cigarette, 2 if the student had smoked once or twice only, 3 if the student had smoked more than once or twice, but had not smoked any cigarettes in the past 30 days, 4 if the student had smoked in the past 30 days, but less than one cigarette a day, 5 if the student had smoked 1-5 cigarettes a day in the past 30 days, and 6 if the student had smoked about half a pack a day or more in the past 30 days. In a few analyses, dichotomous variables were used to assess different stages in the process of smoking adoption. One dichotomous variable assessed whether or not a student had ever smoked a cigarette. For students who had ever smoked, a second dichotomous variable assessed whether or not the student had smoked in the past 30 days. The variables used to assess attitudes toward equal opportunities

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TABLE 1.

Relationships of Smoking to lttitudes Concerning Equal Opportunities for Women and Hen

Attitude Variable

relations hi^ to Smoking' Females Hales

Support equal educational opportunities

--

--

Support equal job opportunities

--

-.08 I . 01)

---

--

Support equal pay Believe there is discrimination against women in employment and education Believe the military discriminates a g a i m t women Believe your sex will prevent you from gettinu desired kind of work

"

H

Interaction with Sex

Females

--

1189

1061

--

1182

1055

1192

1066

Kales

--

---

954

855

--

--

--

1008

919

--

--

--

1101

1062

This and the subsequent tables give standardized revression coefficients for the attitude variables in a series of OLS (ordinary least square) regressions. The analyses for each sex separately had the saoking scale as the dependent variable and an attitude variable and parents' education as the independent variables. The interaction effect analyses included both sexes and had attitude, attitude times sex, and parents' education as the independent variables. Significance levels are given in parentheses. -- indicates that the revression coefficient was not significant.

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TABLE 2.

Relationships of Smoking to Attitudes Concerning Appropriate Rolea for Uomen and Men Relationship to Smoking'

Attitude Variable Better if man achieves outside the home and women takes cares of home and family Preferable if wife doesn't work wife's employment bad for marital relationship Mother's employment bad for children Employed woman has more. chance to develop herself lor wife to work full-time and husband less

OK

OK for wife and husband to work full-time if no kids if preecbooler

--

Females Hales

Interaction With Sex

N Females

Hales

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TABLE 2 (continued) OK for wife and husband to work half-time - if no kids if preschooler

---

---

OK for wife to work half-time if have preschooler

--

--

--

--

----

---

-

If wife works. husband should help more at home If husband works full-time and wife not employed - wife should do all or most of childcare - OK for husband to d e most of childcare - OK for husband to do all of childcare Personally ,value success in martiape and family more than succesa in work

--

---

Should encourage as much independence in daughters as sons

--

--

--

1155

* See note for TABLE 1. A negative coefficient for an interaction effect indicates that the association between the attitude variable and smoking is more negative or less positive for females than for males.

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TABLE 4. Relationships of Smoking to Attitudes toward Marriage and Sex With and Without Controls for Religious Involvement and Truancy Relationship to Smoking. Without Controls for Religious Involvement and Truancv

Witb Controls for Religious Involvement and Truancv

Difference in Magnitude of Regression Coefficient

Rttitude Variable

Females Hales

Females Hales

Females

Legal marriage better than living together or having a child without marrying

-.25 1.0001)

-.I1 (.0001)

-.I6 (.0001)

-.I2 (.0021

Not a good idea to live together before marry

-.25 (.0001)

-.I6 t.0001)

,-.I5 (.0001)

Expect to marry, have children and not divorce

-.I2 (.00011

-.I6 (.00011

Marriage not a questionable way. ot life

-.lo (.001)

Don't agree that intimacy with one partner is too restrictive

-.08 0

Want to marry soon

--

N

Males

Females

-.09*

-.05

859

796

-.lo (.0041

-.lot

-.07

1075

1025

--

-.I1 (.DO031

:.06

-.05

1070

954

-.lo (.001)

--

-.08

-.05

-.02

1074

1022

-.I1 .(.ODO3)

--

-.03

-.04

1075

1025

+.02

1074

958

+.08 (.01)

Hales

(.011

--

-+.I0 t.001)

--

I

'See notes for TABLES 1 and 3. Values for the regressions without controls for religious involvement and truancy differ slightly from those shown in TABLE 3 because respondents who had missing data for either religious involvement or truancy were excluded from the analyses shown here.

+ I n these two cases the regression coefficient of the attitude variable was substantially reduced by the introduction of controls for religious involvement and truancy (see SAMPLE and METHODS).

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for women, sex roles, marriage, sex and family are listed in Tables 1 , 2 and 3.3The attitude variables include both scales and individual items. The scales were derived on the basis of factor analyses and had a Cronbach alpha of .60 or greater. Some attitude items were not closely correlated with other attitude items that were available for the same subsample, so these items could not be included in a scale; these items were included in the analyses as individual item attitude variables. Since general measures of acceptance of conventional values or a tendency toward deviance were not available for most of the subsamples in this data set, we have used measures of specific characteristics that are related to these general concepts. To assess acceptance of conventional values we used religious involvement, a two-item scale which included importance of religion in the student's life and frequency of attending religious services (items C13B and C13C in Johnston et al., 1986). To assess deviance we used truancy, a two item scale which assessed how many days of school and classes had been missed due to cutting or skipping (items C18 and C19). Quite a few of the attitude variables were significantly related to parents' education (data not shown), and there was a significant inverse association between smoking and parents' education (Waldron & Lye, 1990~).To avoid possible confounding effects, we have controlled for parents' education in the analyses. Parents' education was assessed as the sum of scores for father's and mother's education (items C08 and C09). The relationship between the smoking scale and each of the attitude variables was analyzed using ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions. The smoking scale is an ordinal scale, so we carried out preliminary analyses to test the validity of OLS regression analyses with the smoking scale as the dependent variable. For this purpose, we compared the results of the OLS regressions with the results of corresponding series of logistic regressions; the dependent variable for each logistic regression was a dichotomous variable that assessed one of the steps in the smoking adoption process. The results of the OLS regressions were similar to the results of the corresponding logistic regressions, which supports the validity of the OLS regressions. The logistic regressions also showed that there was little

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difference in the relationships observed for the different stages in the smoking adoption process. Since the more numerous logistic regressions yielded little additional information, we have used OLS regressions for almost all of our analyses. The first series of OLS regressions was carried out separately for females and males and had the smoking scale as the dependent variable and an attitude variable and parents' education as the independent variables. For the attitudes toward sex and marriage, which were the only attitude variables that showed consistent relationships to smoking, we estimated two additional sets of regressions. First, we used logistic regressions to assess the relationships of the dichotomous variables that assessed progression in the smoking adoption process to the variables that assessed attitudes toward sex and marriage. Second, we estimated an additional set of OLS regressions which was similar to the first set of OLS regressions but included religious involvement and truancy as additional independent variables. To assess whether the inclusion of controls for religious involvement and truancy reduced the strength of the statistical association between smoking and an attitude variable, we calculated the difference between the regression coefficients of the attitude variable in the OLS regressions with and without these controls. It was not feasible to test the statistical significance of the difference in regression coefficients, but we have tested whether this difference met our criterion for a "substantial reduction" in a regression coefficient. A regression coefficient is considered to be substantially reduced if the difference in regression coefficients is at least 1.645 times the square root of the sum of the variances of the two regression coefficients. (For a derivation and discussion of this criterion, see Waldron & Lye, 1990~). An additional series of OLS regression analyses included both males and females and tested for gender differences in the relationships between the smoking scale and the attitude variables. Specifically, each of these analyses assessed the relationship of the smoking scale to an attitude variable, gender, the product of the attitude variable and gender, and parents' education. If there was a significant interaction effect (that is, a significant coefficient for the product of attitude and gender), this indicated that the relationship between the attitude variable and smoking differed by gender.

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Because the data were derived from a stratified sample of students clustered within selected high schools, the effective sample sizes for statistical tests are less than the actual sample sizes. Johnston et al. (1986) give general guidelines for correcting significance tests for this design effect. Applying these guidelines, we estimate that, when the probability uncorrected for the design effect is p = .01, the true probability, corrected for the design effect, is between .O1 and approximately .07. Since the procedure to correct for the design effect is only approximate, we do not present corrected probabilities. Instead, we use uncorrected probabilities and a significance level of p S .01, which is roughly equivalent to a significance level of p s .05 for probabilities that have been corrected for the design effect. Another potential problem is that, because we have carried out multiple statistical tests, the risk of Type I error is inflated and we would expect some "statistically significant" results simply due to chance variation. To avoid this problem, we have not based our conclusions on individual, isolated significant results, but rather have focussed our discussion and interpretations on consistent patterns of significant results. In our presentation of results we have not distinguished between findings from different subsamples, since several types of evidence support the comparability of the various subsamples. First, the subsamples were derived by distributing the five questionnaire forms "to participants in an ordered sequence that produces five virtually identical subsarnples" (Johnston et a]., 1986), Second, we found only one relatively minor difference between subsamples in analyses of variance which tested for differences in those variables which were available for all five subsamples: the smoking scale, religious involvement, truancy and parents' education. These analyses showed no significant differences between subsamples for the males, while, for the females, parents' education differed somewhat between subsamples (p < 01). Although this difference was statistically significant, the magnitude of the difference was small, .25 or less out of a theoretical and actual range of 10 for the parents' education score. The final reason why we have not distinguished between subsamples is that our analyses showed that the relationships between smoking and attitudes were very similar for related attitude variables assessed in different subsamples.

Ingrid Waldron and Diane Lye

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RESULTS

For several categories of attitude variables, our analyses showed no significant relationship to smoking or only one or two scattered significant relationships which could well be chance findings as a result of performing multiple statistical tests. Analyses for females and for males showed that attitudes concerning equal opportunities for women were not related to smoking (Table I), attitudes concerning appropriate roles for women and men were not related to smoking (Table 2), and attitudes concerning parental roles were not related to smoking (Table 3). In contrast, traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage were inversely related to smoking for both females and males (Table 3). Specifically, favorable attitudes toward traditional, legal marriage, favorable attitudes toward intimacy with one partner only, and unfavorable attitudes toward cohabitation by unmarried couples were all associated with lower scores on the smoking scale. Students who held these traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage were less likely to have ever smoked a cigarette and, among those who had experimented with smoking, students with these traditional attitudes were less likely to have become a current smoker. Several analyses were carried out to test the hypothesis that acceptance of conventional values and rejection of deviance may contribute to more traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage and may also decrease the likelihood of adopting smoking, and these effects may be one reason for the inverse association between smoking and traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage. As expected, greater religious involvement (our measure of acceptance of conventional values) was correlated with more traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage and with lower scores on the smoking scale. Also as expected, truancy (our measure of deviance) was correlated with more non-traditional attitudes and with higher scores on the smoking scale. When religious involvement and truancy were included as controls in the regressions of smoking on attitudes toward sex and marriage, the magnitudes of the regression coefficients of the attitude variables were reduced by about 20%50% (Table 4). Similar, but somewhat weaker effects were observed when controls were introduced for either religious involve-

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ment or truancy alone. These results support the hypothesis that the inverse association between smoking and traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage is due in pan to the effects of acceptance of conventional values and rejection of deviance. One attitude toward marriage variable, wanting to marry soon, did not show the relationships that were observed for the variables that assessed support for traditional, legal marriage or acceptance of traditional constraints on sexual behavior. For females, wanting to marry soon was not related to smoking, while, for males, wanting to marry soon was associated with higher scores on the smoking scale (Table 3). Wanting to marry soon was not related to religious involvement or truancy, which suggests that wanting to marry soon was not influenced by acceptance of conventional values or rejection of deviance. Wanting to marry soon was associated with dating, which in turn was associated with smoking. When controls for dating were introduced, the association between wanting to marry soon and smoking was no longer significant. To test whether the relationships between smoking and the attitude variables differed by gender, we tested the significance of interaction effects between gender and the attitude variables in analyses that included both females and males. Significant interaction effects were observed for only two attitude variables: the belief that "it is usually better for everyone involved if the man is the achiever outside the home and the woman takes care of the home and family" and the belief that "the husband should make all the important decisions in the family" (Tables 2 and 3). Among males, these traditional attitudes tended to be associated with more smoking, whereas, among females, these traditional attitudes tended to be associated with less smoking. However, the associations within each gender did not reach our criterion for statistical significance (data not shown; .02 S p S .07). DISCUSSION For the females in this national sample of white high school seniors, smoking was not related to support for equal opportunities for women or to attitudes toward changing sex roles, including attitudes toward women's employment and men's involvement in child

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care. Our evidence that women's smoking is not related to attitudes concerning equal opportunities or changing sex roles is particularly oersuasive because we tested relationshios for multiole measures of ihe relevant attitudes and because the Ample size; were large, so even weak associations would have been statistically significant. Thus, our findings provide strong evidence that, at least among white high school seniors, non-traditional attitudes toward sex roles and women's rights do not increase women's smoking. Our findings are congruent with previous evidence which indicates that, among women, smoking is not related to support for the women's liberation movement or to employment status (Eide, 1983; U.S. Dept. HEW, 1977; U.S. Dept. HHS 1985; Waldron & Lye, 1989a). For the males in this study, as for the females, most measures of attitudes concerning sex roles or equal opportunities for women were not related to smoking. However, a few scattered results suggest that males who hold certain non-traditional attitudes toward sexual equality and sex roles may be less likely to smoke. It appears that, for males, smoking was inversely related to support for equal job opportunities for women and to agreement that most fathers should spend more time with their children. However, it should be noted that, for most of the variables analyzed, attitudes concerning equal opportunities for women, sex roles, or parental roles were not significantly related to smoking for either males or females. For both males and females, one type of non-traditional attitude, rejection of traditional, legal marriage and rejection of traditional constraints on sexual behavior, was associated with smoking. Nontraditional attitudes toward sex and marriage were associated with a greater likelihood of having experimented with smoking and, among those who had experimented with smoking, a greater likelihood of having become a current smoker. Each of these associations was observed in analyses that controlled for parental education, which suggests that they were not due to the confounding effects of socioeconomic status. Our findings that non-traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage are associged with smoking confirm and extend previous evidence that smoking is more common among females who have had early sexual experience or multiple sexual partners, and smoking is more common among divorced

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adults than among married adults (Jessor et al., 1983; Pederson & Stavraky, 1987; Slattery et al., 1989; US Dept HEW, 1977; Waldron & Lye, 1989b). As discussed in the INTRODUCTION, previous evidence suggests that rejection of conventional values and a tendency toward deviance contribute both to non-traditional sexual and marital behavior and to the adoption of smoking, and this is one reason why non-traditional sexual and marital behavior is associated with smoking. Similar relationships were observed in our analyses. A measure of rejection of conventional values (lack of religious involvement) and a measure of deviant behavior (truancy) were associated with both smoking and non-traditional attitudes toward sex and rnarriage. As expected, when religious involvement and truancy were introduced as controls, this reduced the strength of the statistical association between smoking and non-traditional attitudes toward sex and marriage. These analyses suffer from two methodological problems. First, general measures of acceptance of conventional values and tolerance of deviance were not available in the data set. Second, it was not possible to test explicitly the causal relationships we have assumed in interpreting the statistical results. In future research, it will be of interest to test the hypothesized relationships using better measures of acceptance of conventional values and tolerance of deviance and a research design that will permit explicit testing- of the hypothesized causal relationships. -. Historical evidence suggests that smoking may have been associated with a broader range of attitudes and behaviors for women born in the early twentieth century than for contemporary women. For example, although labor force participation is not associated with women's smoking in contemporary data, it appears that labor force participation was associated with smoking for women born in the early part of the twentieth century (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1985; Waldron, 1980, 1990; Waldron & Lye, 1989a). Although smoking is not associated with support for women's rights in contemporaly data, historical evidence indicates that, in the 1920s in the United States, college women often explicitly asserted their right to smoke as part of their equal rights wiih men (Fass, 1977). It may be that, in this earlier period, smoking, labor force participation, and support for women's rights were all deviant

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behaviors for women, and women who were rebellious and rejected conventional values may have been more likely to adopt each of these behaviors. These observations suggest that the relationships between women's smoking and various components of women's emancipation have varied historically. Another important observation is that the causes of historical variation in women's smoking appear to differ from the causes of individual variation in smoking among contemporaly women. Historical evidence suggests that a major reason for the increase in women's smoking during the twentieth century has been increasing social acceptance of women's smoking (Waldron, 1990). Increasing social acceptance of women's smoking appears to have been due in large part to improvements in women's general status and rights, resulting in part from increases in women's employment. Thus, historical evidence suggests that trends in women's employment and status have contributed to trends in women's smoking, even though, in the contemporary era, an individual woman who is employed or supports women's rights is not more likely to be a smoker. Data for the post-World War I1 era provide another example of the difference between relationships observed in individual level data and historical trend data. In individual level data, smoking is associated with non-traditional attitudes and behavior with respect to sex and marriage. In contrast, recent trends in smoking have not been correlated with trends in non-traditional sexual and marital behavior. During the 1950s and early 1960s women's smoking increased, while during the late 1960s and 1970s women's smoking tended to decrease (US Dept HHS, 1980; Waldron, 1990). In contrast, during the 1950s and early 1960s there was relatively little increase in divorce rates or rates of premarital intercourse among teenage girls, while during the late 1960s and 1970s divorce rates and rates of premarital intercourse increased rapidly (D'Emilio & Freedman, 1988; McLaughlin, Melber, Billy et al., 1988; National Center for Health Statistics, 1987). It should also be noted that the women's liberation movement was relatively inactive during the 1950s and early 1960s when women's smoking was increasing, whereas there was considerable support for the women's liberation movement during the late 1960s and 1970s when women's smoking

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tended to decrease. Clearly, the recent historical trends in women's smoking have been influenced primarily by factors different from those that have influenced trends in non-traditional sexual and marital behavior or the strength of the women's liberation movement. In future research it will be of interest to identify the causes of the recent trends in women's smoking and gender differences in smoking (Waldron, 1990; Waldron et al., 1990). In conclusion, the results of this and previous studies indicate that, among contemporary women, smoking is not related to attitudes toward sex roles, attitudes toward equal opportunities for women, or support for the women's liberation movement. In addition, adoption of traditional male roles appears not to contribute to women's smoking. However, non-traditional attitudes and behavior with respect to sex and marriage are associated with smoking for both females and males. It appears that one important reason for this association is that rejection of conventional values and a tendency toward deviance contribute both to teenage smoking and to non-traditional attitudes and behavior with respect to sex and marriage.

NOTES 1. In addition to [he data reviewed here, previous studies have provided evidence concerning an "emancipation index" which had higher values if a woman was younger, better educated, urban, and employed outside the home (Eide, 1983; Pedersen & Stavraky, 1987). These studies found that smoking was most common among women with medium or high scores on the emancipation index. This finding is difficult to interpret because the emancipation index combines several different characteristics, some of which are only indirectly linked to women's attitudes and behavior. 2. Women employed in traditional male occupations are somewhat more likely to smoke than women employed in traditional female occupations, but this does not appear to be due to the effects of occupation on smoking (Waldron & Lye, 1989a). Rather, women employed in traditional male occupations were more likely to have adopted smoking as adolescents, prior to beginning employment. This suggests that there may be personal characteristics or experiences which increase the likelihood of becoming a smoker and of entering traditional male occupations. 3. Supplementary Tables are available from the first author upon request.

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