Triggered by this post by Matt Birchler were he mentioned that in the US only about 12.5% of adults were still smoking, I went looking for some statistics for Austria. Turns out Statistik Austria also has some numbers going back to 1972!
| Year | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 23.7% | 17.9% |
| 2014 | 26.7% | 22.2% |
| 2006 | 27.5% | 19.2% |
| 1972 | 38.7% | 9.8% |
(Source: Statistik Austria)
While smoking is on the decline at least for men, the number of women smoking has only reached its peak in 2014. The range is a bit different from the US numbers, though, as people 16 years or older have been considered here.
With 20.1% in 2019 we are slightly higher than the EU average of 18.4 and it will probably take us a long time to reach the levellevel of Sweden (6.4%) if ever? 😔 That being said, at least since 2019 there has now been a ban of smoking in restaurants. No separated areas that simply never worked, no pure smoker or non-smoker restaurants. One rule for everyone. This took us long enough and there has been a lot of weird lobbying around that issue but in the end banning smoking in restaurants had finally been achieved.
Thinking back just about 10-15 years tourists from Austria were still surprised and some even angered by new rules having been put in place in Italy where indoor-smoking had just being banned. How times change and sometimes even for the better 😀
Do you want to give me feedback about this article in private? Please send it to comments@zerokspot.com.
Alternatively, this website also supports Webmentions. If you write a post on a blog that supports this technique, I should get notified about your link 🙂