When women take over: Physician gender and health care provision

Gerald Pruckner, Flora Stiftinger and Katrin Zocher ()
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Katrin Zocher: Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz

No 2024-04, Economics working papers from Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

Abstract: The share of female physicians has risen in OECD countries in recent decades, but we know little about the effects of physician gender. We exploit quasi-random assignment of primary care providers (PCPs) to patients and estimate the causal effect of female PCPs on health care provision. Using Austrian register data and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that female PCPs generate 14% less revenue than male PCPs. This gap is driven by a 6% reduction in the number of patients and a 6.5% decrease in services per patient. Our findings are not consistent with discrimination; instead, female PCPs work fewer hours.

Keywords: physician gender; primary care; gender medicine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I11 I12 J16 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-lab
Note: English
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jku:econwp:2024-04

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