Which Came First—Better Education or Better Health?

Many research have shown that Education is associated with better health outcomes. People have higher education exhibit less anxiety and depression, have fewer functional limitations, and are less likely to have a serious health condition like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or asthma.

In 2021, the private consumption expenditure on alcohol and tobacco in Singapore amounted to 3.37 billion Singapore dollars. Alcohol and tobacco are heavily taxed in Singapore, making it one of the most expensive countries in the world for both products.

How much do different education level people spend on these two items? Who spend more? People with lower education level?

Private consumption expenditure on alcoholic beverages and tobacco in Singapore from 2012 to 2021

Give a guess!

General Population

No Qualification

Primary

Lower secondary

Secondary

Post Secondary

Polytechnic

Diploma

University

The following donut charts are illustration of the distribution of Monthly Household Expenditure by Type of Goods and Services and Highest Qualification Attained of Main Income Earner.

We can see that every family have around 1/3 of the total spend is on food related items. Orange stands for the food consumption. The magenta stands for food services. The blue bar is the percentage of ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AND TOBACCO, which are relatively small percentage compared to normal food consumptions.

Which group has the highest percentage?

Alcohol and Tobacco monthly expenditure (%)

Monthly Total Expenditure ($)

Monthly Spend Total Expenditure on Alcohol and Tobacco ($)

HDB popluation (1000)

Total Spending (1000$)

Is this the end of the story?

Are people with“university”qualifications more concerned for health issue?

Here’s still one more parameter to be considered: The big pricing range of different kinds of ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AND TOBACCO. Someone can spend 100 dollars on 10 packs of cigarettes, while someone else can spent 200 dollars on one pack. The person spends less money is the heavier smoker in this case.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the price dataset of the consumption. We couldn’t see the actual quantity, which indicates the actual level of “un-healthiness” each group of people.