Social class differences in the accounts of smoking – striving for distinction?

Abstract

The dominant trend in smoking prevalence in most Western countries is its increasing association with lower socioeconomic positions, making it a major factor behind inequalities in health. This paper focuses on the reasoning behind smoking, as well as on its social significance among middle-class and working-class smokers. The data consist of 55 semi-structured interviews with daily smokers, ex-smokers and occasional smokers from different occupational backgrounds. The analysis revealed considerable differences in the ways of accounting for smoking, relating to the respondents' occupational backgrounds. Contrary to expectations, non-manual workers tended to consider their smoking functional, pleasurable and controlled, whereas the opposite was the case with the manual workers. Despite the high prevalence of smoking in that group, they were least willing to justify or rationalise their behaviour, whereas the agenda of middle-class smokers could be interpreted as the reconciliation of middle-class habitus with a risky, working-class habit.