Drinking, Cigarette Smoking, and Employment Among American College Freshmen at a Four-Year University

Abstract

Background For American college students, alcohol and cigarette use are important health concerns, and employment concurrent with school attendance is on the rise. Given the lifelong importance of employment and substance use trajectories begun in college, parsing out the relationship between the two is meaningful. Objectives This study’s purpose is to determine whether employment during college is associated with substance use. Methods Cross-sectional associations between employment (work hours, earnings) and substance use (drinking frequency, drinking quantity, smoking frequency) were estimated using partial proportional odds models in a sample of N=1457 freshmen attending a large, public 4-year university in 2011, after accounting for demographics, personality, social environment, and parental influences. Results Working 10 more hours and earning $50 more per week as a freshman had modest positive associations with higher smoking frequency and with moderate drinking frequency and quantity prior to adjustment. After adjustment, work hours remained modestly associated with moderate drinking frequency and quantity. No adjusted associations were found among employment measures and smoking or between weekly earnings and drinking frequency. Different relationships emerged for moderate versus heavy alcohol use frequency and quantity. Conclusions Both employment and substance use are commonplace among college freshmen. After extensive controls for potential confounders, the relationship between the two appears modest. Employment may yet play a role in college student substance use, but work hours and earnings are likely only small parts of a larger web of influences on drinking and smoking.

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“…In recent years, as the number of enrollment and undergraduate graduates in Chinese universities and colleges continues to increase, the employment of college students has received widespread attention from all walks of life, and the employment of graduates has also become an important investigation index for the work of colleges and universities as well as relevant government departments [1][2][3]. At this stage, as an important content of China's livelihood system, employment has attracted extensive attention from all walks of life, and to a certain extent, it affects China's social stability, economic development, and improvement of living standards [4][5].…”