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The Impact of Physician-Patient Gender Match on Healthcare Quality: An Experiment in China

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  • Si, Yafei
  • Chen, Gang
  • Zhou, Zhongliang
  • Yip, Winnie
  • Chen, Xi

Abstract

Despite growing evidence of gender disparities in healthcare utilization and health outcomes, there is a lack of understanding of what may drive such differences. We present novel evidence on the impact of physician-patient gender match on healthcare quality using the standardized patients (SPs) method in an experiment. The experiment collected interactions between standardized patients and physicians in a primary care setting in China during 2017-2018. We find that, compared with female physicians treating female SPs, female physicians treating male SPs resulted in a 23.4 percentage-point increase in correct diagnosis and a 19.0 percentage-point increase in correct drug prescriptions. Despite these substantial gains in healthcare quality, there was no significant increase in medical costs or time investment. The gains in healthcare quality were partly attributed to better physician-patient communications, but not the presence of more clinical information. More importantly, female physicians treating male SPs prescribed more unnecessary tests but fewer unnecessary drugs to balance their time commitment and costs. The results suggest the potential role of cultural gender norms and physician defensive behavior when female physicians treat male SPs. Our findings imply that improving patient centeredness may lead to significant gains in the quality of healthcare with modest costs, while reducing gender differences in care quality.

Suggested Citation

  • Si, Yafei & Chen, Gang & Zhou, Zhongliang & Yip, Winnie & Chen, Xi, 2025. "The Impact of Physician-Patient Gender Match on Healthcare Quality: An Experiment in China," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1607, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:1607
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    gender disparities; healthcare quality; standardized patient; experiment; China;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I14 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Inequality
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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