Increase in female smokers: Attribution of smoking and non-smoking college students on this phenomenon

This study touched on the increase in female smokers in the Philippines, a relatively under-researched and under-publicized social phenomenon as compared with other countries. The study also presents various literatures that helped back up the implications that it made such as smoking, its causes and effects, attribution on smoking and gender differences. It aims to uncover and describe the attribution of the 400 male and female smoking and non-smoking college students from various universities in Metro Manila regarding this phenomenon. 400 respondents from each school namely: DLSU, ADMU, UP AND UST were divided into 4 main groups namely: male smokers, male non-smokers, female smokers and female non-smokers. The survey sheet contained a background information regarding the increase in female smokers in the Philippines based from the information derived from the World Health Organization (1992) and was followed by a question as to what factors the respondents think contributed to this phenomenon. Data gathered from survey sheet went through content analysis and frequencies were tallied and tabulated into 5 categories: personal, self-image, influence/pressure, social acceptability and women\u27s liberation. After the responses were properly tabulated, some Chi-square tests were used to determine significant differences between two close percentages among the categories. The discussion attempts to see the implications of the gathered data regarding the increase in female smokers, and the two categories frequently attributed were the influence/pressure and personal categories