I have also read that article
I quote Dr.Judith Mackay “ With low female rates of 3 per cent to 5 per cent – common to Asian countries.”
In my opinion, this is a positive stereotype.
First of all, Asia is far too big a continent (!) to make such generalizations.
To give a few examples, in Israel the female smoking rate is 24 per cent,
in Syria 10%, in Turkey 20- 24 per cent.
Further East we have Bangladesh with 23.8% per cent, Nepal with 29 percent, and Pakistan with 9 per cent.
If we focus on East-Asia then we have Japan with 13.4 per cent, Mongolia with 25.5 per cent, Myanmar with 22.3 per cent, and Philippines with 11%.
Just to mention a few countries that defy Dr. Mackay’s assessment.
The 4% Dr. Mackay claims, so to say the morally impeccable East-Asian female, is the result of chronic - if not to say blatant - underreporting,e.g. HK & Korea
For China, Vietnam, and Indonesia it might be true, but Big Tobacco has not fully started in China and Vietnam, due to entry barriers.
The percentage numbers for the countries mentioned above are derived from the book “Global Efforts to Combat Smoking” by Goel & Nelson, 2008, page 17 following. The book is available at HK Central Library