Beginnen en stoppen met roken: De invloed van opleiding, ouders en partners in een gebeurtenissenanalyse

Smoking initiation and cessation: the influence of education, parents and partners in an eventhistory analysis In this article, I study the influence of own education and parents’ and partner’s educational level and smoking behaviour on smoking initiation and cessation. Hypotheses are formulated about the influence of parents on smoking initiation and of partners on quitting smoking. These hypotheses are tested with unique retrospective longitudinal data for the general Dutch population. The analyses show that lower educated people are more likely to start smoking than higher educated people and that those with only primary education are less likely to quit smoking. Parents’ education has no effect on the chance to start smoking, but parental smoking increases the likelihood of initiation. Partners appear to be important for cessation. Having a partner increases the chance of cessation among women compared to being single. Partner’s smoking behaviour affects the chance to quit smoking for both men and women. Living with a smoker reduces the chance to stop smoking, whereas having a partner who has quit smoking increases the likelihood of cessation. This last effect wears off over time, but the negative effect of a smoking partner persists. Partner’s education does not have a significant effect. Some of the effects changed over birth-cohorts.