Affiliation: University of Toronto
Title: "Does Physicians’ Female Socialization Influence Female Patients’ Health?"
Office: 216B
Abstract:
While physicians’ decision making is important to patients’ health, the determinants of physician behavior remain to be understood. In this paper, we study the influence of physicians’ families, and in particular the gender mix of children, on physician behavior and patient health outcomes. Using Danish population register data, we provide evidence that the gender mix of General Practitioners' (GPs) children matters for female-specific cancer deaths. Specifically, we find that conditional on GPs’ number of children, female patients of a male GP who has one additional daughter are 0.1 percentage point (or 5.4%) less likely to die from any women’s cancer, such as breast cancer. The number of daughters does not affect female cancer mortality for female GPs. We also find evidence that male GPs with more daughters are more attentive to female-specific health guidelines. In addition, consistent with having greater affinity towards women, male GPs with more daughters are more likely to partner up with a female GP in duo-GP clinics. To our knowledge, this paper provides the first empirical evidence that physicians’ family environment, and in particular their children, influences physician behaviors and gender-specific patient outcomes.