Market structure and gender disparity in health care: Preferences, competition, and quality of care

We consider the relationship between market structure and health outcomes in a setting where patients have stark preferences: urology patients disproportionately match with a urologist of the same gender. In the United States, however, fewer than 6% of urologists are women despite women constituting 30% of patients. We explain a portion of this disparity with a model of imperfect competition in which urology groups strategically differentiate themselves by employing female urologists. These strategic effects may influence women's health, as markets without a female urologist have a 7.3% higher death rate for female bladder cancer, all else equal. © 2014, RAND.

Duke Scholars

Author James W. Roberts Economics

Author Ryan Carty McDevitt Fuqua School of Business