Graham H
Soc Sci Med. 1987;25(1):47-56. doi: 10.1016/0277-9536(87)90206-1.
Women's smoking behaviour, and the smoking behaviour of mothers in particular, is becoming an important focus of research in the area of health and inequality. Smoking among women is linked to social disadvantage, with the highest rates among white women in working class households. Evidence is accumulating of the effects of women's smoking on their health and on the health of their children. Women's smoking behaviour is also implicated in the process of childhood socialisation into smoking, with mother's smoking attitudes and practices identified as powerful influences on children's smoking behaviour. Despite the emphasis on maternal smoking in epidemiological studies, little attention has been paid in psychological and social research to the experience of smoking in the context of poverty and motherhood. Drawing on a study of 57 women caring for pre-school children in low-income families, the article explores some of the complex links between women's poverty, caring and smoking. The study suggests that, for a significant minority of mothers, poverty and caring combine with low levels of physical and emotional energy, with sleep problems and with feelings of social isolation. In this context, smoking appeared to provide a way of coping with caring-in-poverty: a way of coping alone with the demands of full-time caring and with the struggle of making ends meet.
女性的吸烟行为，尤其是母亲的吸烟行为，正成为健康与不平等领域研究的一个重要焦点。女性吸烟与社会劣势相关，工人阶级家庭中的白人女性吸烟率最高。越来越多的证据表明女性吸烟对自身健康以及子女健康的影响。女性吸烟行为还与儿童吸烟的社会化过程有关，母亲的吸烟态度和行为被认为对孩子的吸烟行为有很大影响。尽管流行病学研究强调母亲吸烟问题，但心理学和社会学研究很少关注贫困和母亲身份背景下的吸烟体验。本文基于一项对57名低收入家庭中照顾学龄前儿童的女性的研究，探讨了女性贫困、照顾孩子与吸烟之间的一些复杂联系。研究表明，对于相当一部分母亲来说，贫困和照顾孩子与身体和情感能量水平低、睡眠问题以及社会孤立感并存。在这种情况下，吸烟似乎成为了一种应对贫困中照顾孩子的方式：一种独自应对全职照顾需求以及维持收支平衡的挣扎的方式。
