IS EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION BASED ON TOBACCO USE EFFICIENT?

Ian Irvine () and Hai V. Nguyen

Contemporary Economic Policy, 2014, vol. 32, issue 4, 752-768

Abstract: type="main" xml:lang="en">

Numerous employers in over 20 U.S. states currently discriminate legally against smokers in their hiring policies. We analyze the cost of being a smoker, measured in annual hospital days, and compare this with the cost of being a former smoker, the cost of being obese, and the cost of a variety of other medical conditions, relative to the cost of being a never smoker, using three large recent surveys each having in excess of one hundred thousand observations. The paper also explores the cost of former smokers as determined by the number of years since quitting. Smokers as a whole are not found to be the most costly employees. Furthermore, health costs vary dramatically among smokers of different duration and intensity. As a consequence, our results question the efficiency of such discrimination. (JEL I10, I18, J71, J7)

Date: 2014
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