Family Structure, Education and Cigarette Smoking of the Adults in China: A Double-Hurdle Model

Xiaohua Yu, Pennsylvania State University
David Avler, Pennsylvania State University

Cigarette smoking process can be divided into two steps: participation decision and consumption decision. A positive number of cigarette consumption can be observed only after deciding to participate in smoking,which gives an approach to solving the problem of zero observations. Following this logic, a double hurdle statistic model is suggested to estimate the cigarette assumption in China using 2004 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS). This study rejects the independence of the two decisions. The main finding is that family members can affect the participation decision of smoking but can not affect the consumption. In particular, those residing with parents, in particular single parents, and those divorced are more likely to participate in smoking. And educational level can affect both participation decision and consumption decision, and the relation between education and cigarette addiction is more likely to be an inverted-U shape rather than a negative or positive linear relation.