Alarm over increase in middle-class women smoking as experts demand 'targeted ... trends now
More middle-class and wealthy women are smoking than a decade ago, bucking the national trend.
While smoking rates have fallen among working-class women, research suggests they have risen among younger, more advantaged women.
Experts suggest the increases could be down to the stresses of women-led professions – such as teaching and nursing – as well as being less affected by prices rises.
Researchers from University College London studied data from almost 200,000 adults in England who participated in the Smoking Toolkit Study.
Experts believe the smoking rise could be due to women having more stressful jobs – such as nursing and teaching – but also financial pressures being less felt thank in other groups
Some 44,052 were women of reproductive age (18 to 45), considered to be some of the most at risk from smoking harms.
Smoking prevalence among working-class women and the unemployed fell from 28.7 per cent to 22.4 per cent across the decade.
But among women where highest household earners were in professional, managerial or clerical jobs, the proportion jumped from 11.7 per cent to 14.9 per cent.
The same was not true for men - with rates staying stable across the decade, according to the study funded by Cancer Research UK and published in BMC Medicine.
Meanwhile, vaping among all women aged 18 to 45 has more than tripled in a decade, rising from 5.1 per cent to 19.7 per cent between 2013 and 2023.
It comes days after MPs backed Rishi Sunak's plan to ban anyone born after 2009 from buying cigarettes, despite opposition from some Tory MPs.
The legislation will also introduce measures designed to 'crack down on youth vaping' and strengthen enforcement of vaping restrictions.
Lead author Dr Sarah Jackson, of UCL's institute of epidemiology and health care, said the rise among this group was 'concerning'.
She said: 'These findings suggest this group may benefit from targeted intervention to prevent the uptake of smoking or relapse.
'Reducing smoking
