When women take over: Physician gender and health care provision

The share of female physicians has risen in OECD countries in recent decades, but we know little about the effects of physician gender on patient health care use. We exploit quasi-random assignment of primary care providers (PCPs) to existing PCP practices and 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 15% less revenue and see 7% fewer patients than male PCPs. Shifting the focus to patient-level outcomes, we observe that health care utilization remains largely unchanged following assignment to a female physician. However, results show that patients are more likely to leave PCP practices with female successors. Our results do not support the idea that the decision to change PCP is driven by preferences against being treated by female physicians. Instead, our analysis suggests that the observed differences are partly explained by female PCPs working fewer hours, especially those facing working time restrictions. As the share of female physicians continues to rise, measures to increase work flexibility may be necessary to maintain broad access to outpatient health care.