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Gender Differences in Medical Evaluations: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Doctors

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  • Marika Cabral
  • Marcus Dillender

Abstract

Little is known about what drives gender disparities in health care and related social insurance benefits. Using data and variation from the Texas workers’ compensation program, we study the impact of gender match between doctors and patients on medical evaluations and associated disability benefits. Compared to differences among their male patient counterparts, female patients randomly assigned a female doctor rather than a male doctor are 5.2% more likely to be evaluated as disabled and receive 8.6% more subsequent cash benefits on average. There is no analogous gender-match effect for male patients. Our estimates indicate that increasing the share of female patients evaluated by female doctors may substantially shrink gender gaps in medical evaluations and associated outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Marika Cabral & Marcus Dillender, 2021. "Gender Differences in Medical Evaluations: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Doctors," NBER Working Papers 29541, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29541
    Note: EH LS PE AG
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    Cited by:

    1. Gallen, Yana & Wasserman, Melanie, 2023. "Does information affect homophily?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 222(C).
    2. Francetic, I.; & Meacock, R.; & Siciliani, L.; & Sutton, M.;, 2024. "Disorderly queues: How does unexpected demand affect queue prioritisation in emergency care?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 24/14, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    3. Dahlstrand Rudin, Amanda, 2022. "Defying distance? The provision of services in the digital age," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 118042, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Gordon Burtch & Alejandro Zentner, 2024. "Gender Bias and Property Taxes," Papers 2412.12610, arXiv.org.
    5. Gerald J. Pruckner & Flora Stiftinger & Katrin Zocher, 2024. "When women take over: Physician gender and health care provision," Economics working papers 2024-04, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    6. Amanda Dahlstrand, 2022. "Defying distance? The provision of services in the digital age," CEP Discussion Papers dp1889, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Mette Goertz & Ida Lykke Kristiansen & Tianyi Wang, 2024. "The Power of Daughters: How Physicians Family Influences Female Patients Health," CEBI working paper series 24-18, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics. The Center for Economic Behavior and Inequality (CEBI).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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