The Un'Healthy' Gaps: Evidence on Gendered Faultlines in Digital Healthcare Services

Dweepobotee Brahma and Nikita Sangwan

No 2026/02, QBS Working Paper Series from Queen's University Belfast, Queen's Business School

Abstract: We study whether digital platforms for high-skilled professionals level the playing field or reproduce traditional gender inequalities. Using high-frequency data on physicians, we examine gender differences in labor supply, pricing, patient engagement, and platform visibility. Although the platform equalizes supply-side margins of working hours and fees, female physicians experience lower demand, reduced search visibility, and lower reputation metrics. Investigating the underlying mechanisms, experimental evidence indicates taste-based discrimination, while text-analysis of patient reviews finds no gender differential. These findings underscore the potential role of platforms in reducing institutional constraints but not demand-side biases, with reputation metrics playing a crucial mitigation role.

Keywords: gender bias; digital platforms; healthcare; high-skilled professionals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 J16 J24 L86 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-lab and nep-lma
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:qmsrps:202602

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