The Review of Economics and Statistics

VOL. CIV

JULY 2022

NUMBER 4

CAN FEMALE DOCTORS CURE THE GENDER STEMM GAP? EVIDENCE
FROM EXOGENOUSLY ASSIGNED GENERAL PRACTITIONERS

Julie Riise, Barton Willage, and Alexander Willén*

Abstract—We use exogenously assigned general practitioners to study the
effects of female role models on girls’ educational outcomes. Girls who
are exposed to female general practitioners are more likely to sort into
male-dominated education programs in high school, most notably science,
技术, 工程, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM). These ef-
fects persist as they enter college and select majors. The effects are larger
for high-ability girls with low-educated mothers, suggesting that female
role models improve intergenerational mobility and narrow the gifted gap.
This demonstrates that role model effects in education need not involve
individuals in the classroom but can arise due to everyday interactions with
医疗专业人员.

我.

介绍

WOMEN outperform men in educational attainment but

remain underrepresented in ﬁelds with high ﬁnancial
returns, most notably STEMM (科学, 技术, engi-
neering, mathematics, and medicine). This gender imbalance
in education can explain a large part of the gender wage gap
(Carrell, 页, & 西方, 2010; Lavy & Sand, 2018; Wein-
berger, 1999), and a better understanding of the mechanisms
underlying this phenomenon is imperative. As the conven-
tional explanations of discrimination and differences in apti-
tude have largely been ruled out (Card & 佩恩, 2017; Ceci
等人。, 2014; Hyde, 2005), increasing attention has been placed
on alternative mechanisms, such as same-gender role models,
inﬂuencers, and mentors.

Exposure to same-gender role models may affect educa-
tional decisions through several channels. Role models may
fuel higher aspirations, reduce “stereotype threats,” and con-
vey important information (Breda et al., 2018).1 A growing
body of work within education economics supports the role

Received for publication December 17, 2019. Revision accepted for pub-

lication August 13, 2020. Editor: Brian A. 雅各布.

∗Riise: University of Bergen; Willage: Louisiana State University; Willén:

Norwegian School of Economics.

A.W. gratefully acknowledges ﬁnancial support from the Research Coun-
cil of Norway through its Centers of Excellence Scheme, FAIR project
262675. We thank Benjamin Castleman, Chloe East, Ariel Kalil, Katrine
Løken, Marianne Page, Bertil Tunggodden, Lise Vesterlund, Aparna Soni,
and Analisa Packham, as well as several other colleagues and seminar par-
ticipants, for valuable comments and suggestions.

A supplemental appendix is available online at https://doi.org/10.1162/

rest_a_00975.

1We deﬁne role models as “a person whose behavior in a particular role
is imitated by others” (Merriam-Webster, 2020). 然而, we acknowl-
edge that several deﬁnitions and types of role models exist. For a concise
discussion on this topic, see Chung (2000).

model hypothesis, showing that females who are exposed to
female role models in high school and college perform better
in school and are more likely to select into male-dominated
ﬁelds.2 However, several questions remain: Are these effects
temporary or permanent? Do they extend to more general
settings outside the classroom? Can exposure in childhood,
before important education investments have been made, 亲-
duce similar effects?

This paper aims to move beyond the existing role model lit-
erature by addressing these questions, exploiting exogenous
variation in general practitioner (GP) assignment for Norwe-
gian children. Norwegian GPs act as gatekeepers to the coun-
try’s health care system and are responsible for diagnosing
and treating patients and referring them to hospitals and spe-
cialists. When individuals are no longer able to consult with
their existing GPs (例如, due to GP retirement), the Norwe-
gian Health Economics Administration (HELFO) randomly
reassigns them to new GPs conditional on municipality and
availability. We use GP reassignments due to GP retirement
or other causes outside the patient’s control as a source of
exogenous variation to test if childhood exposure to female
GPs, a group of successful female STEMM role models, 有
an effect on the educational choice and performance of girls.
Using doctor-patient interactions to test for same-gender
role model effects has several beneﬁts. 第一的, the interactions
take place in childhood before any educational decisions have
been made. 第二, by tracing the role model effects through-
out a child’s education career, from compulsory school to col-
lege, we can examine the persistence of the effect as children
年龄. 第三, the role model interactions take place outside the
classroom. This allows us to better understand to what extent
same-sex role model effects, as identiﬁed in the education
文学, extend to more general settings. This is interest-
ing as the majority of role model studies in the classroom
have focused on teacher-student interactions. Such effects
may be driven by gender differences in teaching practices,
the student-teacher interaction may be different from other
types of social interactions, and the purpose of a classroom (到

2Bettinger and Long (2005); Breda et al. (2018); Carrell et al. (2010); Dee
(2004, 2005); Eble and Hu (2017); Grifﬁth (2014); Hoffman and Oreopou-
洛斯 (2009); Kofoed and McGovney (2017); Lim and Meer (2017); Mansour
等人. (2018); Gershenson et al. (2018); Porter & Serra (2019); Canaan and
Mougaine (2019).

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 七月 2022, 104(4): 621–635
© 2020 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00975

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622

THE REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS

create an environment conducive to academic development)
may make children more receptive to role model inﬂuences.
此外, while disentangling same-gender role model ef-
fects from other potential mechanisms in the classroom is
difﬁcult (例如, differences in teaching practices), our setting
allows us to test for these confounders (gender differences
in health practices) 直接地. 最后, while females remain
underrepresented among GPs (37% of GPs were females
during our analysis period), this is a less male-dominated
ﬁeld than, 例如, math, 物理, and computer science.
Understanding if same-gender role models can have an im-
pact on girls’ educational performance and career choices
even in relatively more balanced ﬁelds has important policy
implications.

For our analysis, we leverage rich matched doctor-patient
administrative data on all children in Norway who were
subject to an exogenous GP reassignment between 2002 和
2011. We link these data to detailed information on educa-
tional performance and choices made throughout individuals’
academic careers from tenth grade, the earliest age at which
students have subject specialization options, into college. 到
account for the potential systematic correlation between pre-
vious GP characteristics (such as gender) and the gender of
the new exogenously assigned GP, all analyses incorporate a
full set of previous GP ﬁxed effects.

Exposure to a female GP has a statistically signiﬁcant and
meaningful effect on both STEMM choice and educational
performance among girls. Speciﬁcally, assignment to a fe-
male GP during childhood increases the probability of choos-
ing a STEMM program in high school by 4 百分点
(20% relative to the mean) and increases high school STEMM
GPA by 0.09 standard deviations. These effects persist as girls
enter college: assignment to a female GP increases the prob-
ability of choosing a STEMM college major by more than 2
百分点. This suggests that female role models can
close the gender gap in college STEMM choice by almost
20%. The effects we identify are large, but they fall within
the range of the effects identiﬁed from shorter information
interventions in the classroom (Breda et al., 2018; Porter &
Serra, 2019).3 Our paper shows that role model effects in ed-
ucation need not involve the classroom, but can arise due to
everyday interactions with medical professionals.

We ﬁnd signiﬁcantly larger effects for girls with low-
educated mothers, a group that may be less exposed to same-
gender STEMM role models in general. This suggests that
same-gender role models may facilitate intergenerational oc-
cupational mobility, contributing to a long-standing debate
on the intergenerational transmission of human capital and
how to facilitate socioeconomic mobility (Black et al., 2005).
Quantile regressions suggest that high-ability children with
low-educated mothers drive the results. This demonstrates
that female role models may help narrow the gap between

high-ability students from more and less advantaged socio-
economic backgrounds. This is consistent with evidence sug-
gesting that investments in early childhood, 尤其
among children from disadvantaged backgrounds, can reduce
不等式 (Carneiro & 赫克曼, 2003; Elango et al., 2015).
Consistent with papers on classroom role models (Carrell
等人。, 2010), we ﬁnd no effect of GP gender match on male
educational outcomes.

This paper provides novel insights into how same-gender
role models in childhood outside educational settings may
shape educational choices and career decisions. These results
have important policy implications. Speciﬁcally, educational
choices in high school and college likely have signiﬁcant
effects on future labor market opportunities and career de-
cisions, and may help close the gender wage gap (Carrell
等人. 2010; Lavy and Sand 2018). 更远, female students
with same-gender role models not only select into tradition-
ally male-dominated education programs but also perform
better in school, suggesting that same-gender role models
improve education matches. Intentionally matching girls to
female role models may be an effective tool for narrowing the
gender gap in educational choice and labor market outcomes.
In addition to a direct role model effect, some of our re-
sults could operate through health (same-gender GPs may
have an impact on interactions with the health system) 和
家庭 (mothers’ interactions with the GP might also expose
them to a female role model, which could have an impact on
the mothers’ outcomes directly and their children’s outcomes
indirectly). While these alternative pathways do not threaten
our identiﬁcation strategy, they would affect the interpreta-
tion of our results because some of the effects could operate
through a health-based non–role model channel or through
an indirect role-model channel via the impact on the girl’s
母亲.

We ﬁnd no evidence of these alternative pathways: 分配-
ment to a same-gender GP has no impact on the number
of diagnoses, the likelihood of a mental health diagnosis, 这
probability of visiting the GP for birth control reasons, or fer-
tility. 此外, our ﬁndings do not indicate that the effects
operate through the mother as measured by her education,
labor market, and health outcomes. This suggests the effects
we identify likely are driven by direct role model inﬂuences
between GPs and children.

Our paper contributes to the existing literature in several
方法. 第一的, this is the ﬁrst paper to study one-on-one role
model interactions in childhood. This is an important contri-
bution as these children have not made any educational deci-
sions prior to exposure, such that the potential impact of role
models is greater. 第二, no other paper has examined ef-
fects of same-gender role models outside educational settings
on educational choices. Our setting is important for under-
standing the extent to which the earlier research on teacher-
student interactions generalizes to nonclassroom settings.4

3We focus on STEMM (STEM plus medicine) rather than STEM since
the role models in our setting belong to the former rather than the latter
团体.

4Beaman et al. (2012) show that female representation among politicians
can affect the gender gap in aspirations and education among adolescents.

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CAN FEMALE DOCTORS CURE THE GENDER STEMM GAP?

623

第三, by examining the effect of GP gender match on health
and parents, we can rule out alternative pathways and bet-
ter isolate the role model effect. 最后, Norwegian registry
data allow us to trace children throughout their educational
careers and explore long-term effects.

二. Background

A. Health Care System and GP Assignment in Norway

The Norwegian public health care system is based on uni-
versal access, and enrollment is automatic. As in much of
欧洲, the health system is a two-part system, with primary
care provided by the local municipalities and specialist care
provided by larger health regions.5

Access to specialist care and hospitals can normally be
achieved only through referrals from GPs in the primary care
sector (except in emergencies). The GP is therefore the ﬁrst
point of contact for nonemergency care and is responsible for
diagnosis and treatment. When GPs deem it necessary, 他们
refer patients to specialists. 换句话说, the Norwegian
GPs act as gatekeepers to the country’s health system. 这
average time GPs spend with a patient during an appointment
是 20 minutes (Mjølstad & Stund, 2019), and most children
therefore spend several hours interacting with their GP before
deciding on education specialization at age 15.

自从 2001, the government has assigned every resident
to a local GP.6 In most cases, patients interact with their as-
signed GP every time they use the health care system.7 Prior
to this system, individuals were not tied to a speciﬁc GP and
had to ﬁnd a GP every time they needed care. The system
was meant to improve doctor-patient relationships and en-
sure appropriate use of health care, and the initial assignment
在 2001 was primarily based on patient preferences. 作为
2015, there were 4,500 GPs, and each GP had an average of
1,200 患者. The average GP was 47 years old, 和 60%
were male.

When GPs retire, 移动, or for some other reason decide
to terminate or reduce their patient list, patients on that list
are reassigned to a new GP in the municipality.8 Within the
system’s legal framework, there are two important things to
笔记 (FOR, 2018). 第一的, in the event of list reductions, GPs
must randomly select which patients to remove from the list.
第二, in the event of reassignment, patients should be ran-
domly assigned to new GPs in the municipality conditional

Although that study does not examine the implications of one-on-one inter-
actions between individuals and potential role models, it suggests that role
model effects may exist in nonclassroom settings.

5There are currently 422 municipalities and 4 health regions in Norway.
6Speciﬁcally, the Norwegian Health Economics Administration (part of
the Norwegian Directorate of Health) assigns individuals to local GPs on
behalf of the government.

7There are a few exceptions to this, 例如, if the patient is brought

into the ER.

8Twice per year, individuals can independently change the GP they have
been assigned. Using information on the exact cause of the GP swap, 我们
ignore such endogenous swaps.

on availability.9 However, the regulatory framework does not
specify a randomization device. In section V, we perform
balance tests and falsiﬁcation checks to show that the data
are consistent with the new GPs being exogenously assigned
to children.

We use GP reassignments due to GP retirement or other
causes outside the patient’s control as a source of exoge-
nous variation to test whether exposure to female GPs during
childhood affects the educational choice and performance of
女性. We do not use the initial assignment or any swaps
initiated by patients due to endogeneity concerns. It is im-
portant to note that children often have the same GP as their
母亲. 然而, we ﬁnd no evidence that our effects of
same-gender GP on girls’ education are operating through
their mothers.

The majority of GPs are self-employed (少于 5% 是
salaried municipality employees), and municipalities con-
tract with individual GPs to provide services to their residents
by assigning them to a list of patients. GPs receive a com-
bination of capitation from the municipalities (大约 30%
of their income), fee-for-service from the Health Economics
Administration (almost 70% of their income), and out-of-
pocket payments from patients. GP ﬁnancing is determined
nationally through collective bargaining.

With respect to the gender balance of physicians in Nor-
方式, the number of female physicians has steadily increased
over the past several decades, 从 10% 在 1930 到 40% 在
2010. This number will increase over time as the current share
of female medical students exceeds 50%. 是一致的
other OECD countries, female share across different special-
izations varies widely, 范围从 6% in thoracic surgery to
100% in medical genetics (Legeforeningen, 2019A). 基因内-
埃拉尔, specializations that guarantee a ﬁxed monthly pay (非-
self-employed) and do not require on-call duty tend to have
greater female representation. Because the majority of GPs
are self-employed and all GPs are required by law to be on call
at the emergency room a certain number of weeks per year,
women remain underrepresented as GPs.10 In 2010, 37% 的
GPs were women (Legeforeningen, 2019乙).

乙. The Norwegian Education System

The Norwegian education system consists of ten years of
tuition-free compulsory education starting at age 6, 与
curriculum set by the central government. During the ﬁrst
7年, children are taught a wide range of subjects but
receive no ofﬁcial grades. In the last three years, 学生
study a smaller set of subjects and receive grades. 下列的

9In certain cases, entering GPs can take over the entire list from a retiring
GP. 然而, our identiﬁcation strategy consists of comparing individuals
who had the same GP who then were allocated to different GPs, 这样
these do not contribute to the identifying variation.

10There are three exceptions to the on-call requirement of GPs: 个人
over the age of 60, women in the last three months of pregnancy, and women
with children under the age of 1.

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624

THE REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS

successful completion of compulsory education, each child
has a right to three years of tuition-free high school.

High school in Norway is very different from that in the
美国. It offers thirteen distinct education programs:
ﬁve academic and eight vocational. Academic programs con-
sist of three years of classroom education, while the voca-
tional programs consist of two years of classroom education
followed by one to two years of practical training in the ﬁeld.
In the ﬁrst year of high school, students enroll in one of the
thirteen programs. Then they choose a specialization within
their broad education program. 大约 60% of students pur-
sue an academic track.

High school education provides students with univer-
sity admission certiﬁcation, vocational competence, or basic
(工艺) competence. Those in academic programs receive a
university admission certiﬁcation and can apply to college,
while most students in vocational programs do not.11
Table A1 provides an overview of the education programs
and tracks available at the high school level. To obtain a high
school STEMM credential, a student has to select the Spe-
cialization in General Studies education program in the ﬁrst
year of high school and then specialize in natural science and
mathematics in the second and third years.

Students apply to high school through a centralized system
based on grades from their ﬁnal year of compulsory educa-
的. The application consists of ranking three programs in
the county of residence. If the number of applications exceeds
program capacity, students are assigned based on compulsory
school grades. 然而, although admission to speciﬁc pro-
grams are based on these grades, national law ensures that all
students gain admission to one of the three programs on their
列表.

A range of universities and colleges offer higher education
in Norway, and most are tuition-free public institutions. 这
Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service co-
ordinates the admissions process. Students apply to speciﬁc
programs at the different universities, and if the number of ap-
plications exceeds the number of seats, students are assigned
based on high school grades. Admission is conditional on
having graduated from high school with a university admis-
sion certiﬁcation. 此外, some programs, 最为显着地
STEMM, impose speciﬁc high school course prerequisites.
This makes it difﬁcult for students with non-STEMM high
school diplomas to enroll in STEMM programs.

三、. Data and Method

A. 数据

Our data come from rich administrative records on the
universe of Norwegian residents. We restrict our sample to
individuals who graduated from high school between 2006
和 2014 (born between 1988 和 1996). We start with 2006,

11Individuals in vocational programs can take supplemental courses to

attain this qualiﬁcation.

because the current high school structure was introduced in
that year. We stop with 2014, because that is the ﬁnal year
for which we have education data. The GP system was in-
troduced in 2001, so we have information on all exogenous
swaps starting in 2002, when the youngest individuals in our
sample (born in 1996) 是 6 years old. Because high school
applications are submitted when individuals are 15 years old,
swaps after age 15 should not affect the outcomes we ex-
amine. 像这样, our main analysis exploits variation in GP-
patient gender match among individuals born between 1988
和 1996 who experienced an exogenous GP swap in 2002 或者
later and are between ages 6 和 15. Panel A of table 1 节目
demographic information for these individuals. Only those
who attended high school are included in the data. 自从
probability of attending high school differs between men and
女性 (24,500 males completed high school in 2016 com-
pared to 31,600 女性), our female sample is larger than
our male sample.12

The main strength of our data is that we can link individuals
across different longitudinal data registries through unique
identiﬁers. This allows us to combine the demographic in-
formation in panel A of table 1 with detailed information
on GP interactions (through GP and health care registries),
educational choice and performance (through education reg-
istries), and family characteristics (through intergenerational
identiﬁers and the population registry).13

The GP registry provides information on the GP of every
individual in our sample, for each year since the introduc-
tion of the GP list system. We use unique GP identiﬁers to
combine this registry with health care registry information,
which includes the number of times an individual visited her
GP for each year since 2006. The GP registry also contains
information on whether an individual changed GP during the
year and the reason for that change. For our study, we are
interested in GP swaps that are outside the patient’s control,
which generates plausibly exogenous variation in the gender
of the patient’s new GPs. 为此, we focus on GP swaps
that the doctor decided to terminate, or reduce, the patient
列表. In section V, we show that these swaps are unlikely to
be correlated with the gender of the assigned GP.

With respect to the availability of male and female GPs
within each municipality (the level of assignment), 平均-
age is nine GPs, around two-thirds of them male, per munic-
ipality. Approximately 90% of all girls live in municipalities
that had at least one GP of each gender. These girls are dif-
ferent from the small subset of girls who live in municipali-
ties without both a male and a female GP.14 Although these

12See “Upper Secondary Education Advanced Course II/Certiﬁcate” at
https://ssb.no/341521/completed-educational-programmes-in-upper-seco
ndary-education-by-gender-and-results.

13Table A2 reproduces panel A of table 1 for individuals not subject to an
exogenous swap before age 15. The table shows that the individuals included
in our analysis are very similar to those excluded from the analysis on all
observable dimensions.

14Girls who lived in municipalities that had at least one male and one
female GP were slightly less likely to have siblings (0.180) and be Norwe-
gian born (0.078) and were more likely to have mothers who were more

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CAN FEMALE DOCTORS CURE THE GENDER STEMM GAP?

625

TABLE 1.—DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF INDIVIDUALS IN SAMPLE

Girls

Boys

A: Family Composition

Birth order
Siblings
Born in Norway
Mother age
Mother marital status
Mother years of education
Mother log earnings
Mother not in labor force

乙: GP Visiting Behavior

GP visits age 15
GP visits age 15 conditional on visiting
Still with ex. GP at age 15
GP gender match

C: Educational Performance and Choice

Compulsory school GPA
Compulsory school STEMM GPA
High school GPA
High school STEMM GPA
Academic track year 1
High school STEMM credential
Ever College
Ever College STEMM

意思是

1.864
1.697
0.861
28.987
0.567
14.146
12.740
0.067

1.165
2.130
0.613
0.405

4.591
4.303
4.314
3.993
0.734
0.195
0.751
0.077

标清

0.983
1.064
0.346
5.008
0.496
2.396
0.560
0.250

1.630
1.680
0.487
0.491

0.573
0.889
0.654
0.890
0.440
0.396
0.433
0.266

意思是

1.850
1.707
0.851
29.414
0.595
14.445
12.782
0.070

0.898
1.915
0.616
0.627

4.430
4.351
4.185
3.940
0.807
0.303
0.678
0.185

标清

0.985
1.052
0.356
4.822
0.491
2.356
0.587
0.255

1.525
1.730
0.486
0.483

0.595
0.914
0.681
0.905
0.395
0.460
0.467
0.388

Sample includes all boys and girls born between 1988 和 1996 who were subject to at least one exogenous GP swap prior to age 15. Number of observations is approximately 8,500 girls and 5,500 男孩们. Mother’s
age and marital status are calculated at the year of birth. Mother’s earnings, 教育, and employment are measured when the child is 15 years old (when the children in our sample make their high school choices;
our data do not extend far back enough for us to get this information at the year of birth).

differences are small, we need to be careful to extrapolate
our results to the municipalities in which there were not both
a male and a female GP available. 然而, seeing as this
represents less than 10% of the girls in the country, 我们的确是
not believe that this constitutes a signiﬁcant limitation of our
纸.

Panel B of table 1 provides summary statistics for GP vis-
its of the individuals in our sample, as well as information
on GP swaps. Approximately 40% of girls and 60% of boys
are matched to a same-gender GP after an exogenous swap.
This indicates that there are more male than female GPs in
our sample. The individuals in our sample met with their GP
an average of two times per year, which amounted to thirty
times before they decided on a high school education pro-
公克. Given the average appointment time of 20 minutes, 这
means that each child in our sample spends approximately 10
hours with their GP before deciding which high school edu-
cation program to pursue. This is an upper bound on exposure
to GPs as role models, since the average number of years that
the individuals in our sample remain with their exogenously
assigned GP is three (indicating 120 minutes of mean expo-
sure). The GP intervention we examine is less intense than the
classroom experiments where students interact with teachers
on a daily basis for a relatively long time (Carrell et al., 2010;
Lim & Meer, 2017), but more intense than the information
interventions in which females come to classrooms to talk
(Breda et al., 2018; Porter & Serra, 2019). 重要的, 这些

educated (0.17 years of education), slightly older (0.508), more likely to
be married (0.028), and had higher earnings (0.070 log points).

are one-on-one interactions, which contrasts with much of
the previous literature.

Panel B of table 1 also shows that girls are more likely
to visit their GPs than boys are. While a nonnegligible frac-
tion of our sample experienced a second swap during the
study period, very few individuals swapped GPs more than
twice (table A3). The average number of years that individ-
uals remained with their exogenously assigned GP is three,
and approximately 60% of children who experienced an ex-
ogenous swap prior to age 15 still have the same GP at age
15. This is important for the interpretation of our results as
we are identifying intent-to-treat effects based on the initial
exogenous swap.15

Our education data include detailed information on educa-
tional choice and academic performance. In terms of educa-
tional choice, we begin by using high school registry data to
examine if GP gender match has an effect on the probability of
choosing one of the ﬁve academic tracks discussed in section
二. 下一个, we focus on the primary research question of this
纸: Does a same-gender GP role model encourage girls to
enroll in STEMM? We examine this question by estimating
the effect of GP gender match on the probability of gradu-
ating with a high school STEMM credential. As discussed

15Table A4 compares the characteristics of girls who remain with their
exogenously assigned GPs until age 15 with the characteristics of girls who
do not remain with their exogenously assigned GP. We fail to reject the
null hypothesis that the characteristics of the girls who remain with their
exogenously assigned GP are the same as the characteristics of the girls
who do not remain with their exogenously assigned GP. While this speaks
in favor of the generalizability of our results to the broader population,
we acknowledge that these groups may differ on other dimensions that we
cannot identify.

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626

THE REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS

in section II, this choice is important for STEMM eligibility
at the university level (the correlation between high school
STEMM and college STEMM is 0.35), and in supplemen-
tal analyses we use information from the university registry
to explore if any potential educational choice effects in high
school persist in college.

After exploring the impact of GP gender match on educa-
tional choice, we examine if it had an impact on educational
表现. The outcomes we examine include compulsory
and high school GPA. Since we are interested in the impact
of same-gender role models on the STEMM gender gap, 我们
focus on STEMM GPA. In auxiliary analyses, we extend the
outcome set and examine if potential STEMM GPA effects
extend to non-STEMM GPA.

Compulsory school STEMM GPA is measured in grade
10 and is used to apply to high school. High school STEMM
GPA is measured in grade 13 and is used to apply to college.
Conditional on ﬁnding effects on educational choice, 考试-
ining the effect of same-gender GP on academic performance
in high school is particularly interesting as selection into
STEMM could result in either lower academic performance
(because STEMM is a more academically challenging pro-
公克) or higher academic performance (through improved
program match and motivation). Panel C of table 1 shows de-
scriptive statistics of the educational performance and choice
变量. 平均而言, girls and boys do equally well in school
as measured by GPA. 然而, girls are more likely to attend
university but much less likely to sort into STEMM.

乙. 方法

We estimate the following model separately for males and

女性:

Yi = α + β1GP_Matchi + τt + πm + θc + ρd + εi,

(1)

where Yi is one of the educational outcomes listed above for
individual i. The variable GP_Matchi is a dichotomous vari-
able equal to 1 if the gender of the exogenously assigned GP
matches that of the individual and zero otherwise. The coef-
ﬁcient β1 measures the effect of being exogenously assigned
to a same-gender GP in childhood compared to being exoge-
nously assigned to an opposite-gender GP.16 As the decision
to swap GPs or comply with the assigned GP is endogenous,
we focus on the ﬁrst exogenous swap of the individuals in
our sample.17 This protects us against potential endogeneity

16There are two types of papers in the literature: papers comparing expo-
sure to female role models to exposure to nothing (Porter & Serra, 2019;
Breda et al., 2018) and those comparing exposure to female role models to
exposure to male role models (Carrell et al., 2010; Canaan & Mouganie,
2019). Our paper is part of the second group, and a limitation with this ap-
proach is that it is not possible to know if female GPs positively affect girls’
likelihood to study STEMM or if male GPs negatively affect it. 然而,
all individuals require a GP and will be exposed to either a male or a female
GP, and this paper provides evidence of the implications associated with
assigning girls to female GPs.

17To understand what the results are when we ignore the endogeneity
of treatment (recognizing these are only correlational), we also estimate a

concerns after the initial swap but attenuates our estimates.
The results should therefore be interpreted as intent-to-treat
effects.

方程 (1) includes birth cohort (θc), previous doctor
(ρd ), municipality (πm), and year of swap (τt ) ﬁxed effects.
Municipality ﬁxed effects account for systematic differences
across municipalities correlated both with being assigned to
a same-gender GP and the outcomes. The average size of a
municipality (12,000 个人) is small.18

The previous doctor ﬁxed effects absorb systematic dif-
ferences between the GPs that individuals were assigned to
prior to a swap, such that our identifying variation is driven by
girls who had the same previous GP but were exogenously
moved to differently gendered new GPs (one girl assigned
to a male GP and one to a female GP). This eliminates the
risk of our results being confounded by characteristics of the
girls’ previous GPs and increases the similarity of the girls
we compare. The cohort ﬁxed effects control for any time-
invariant differences between cohorts that may be correlated
with both GP-gender match and outcomes. 最后, the year of
swap ﬁxed effects accounts for systematic differences across
年.

IV. 结果

A. Baseline Results

Panel A of table 2 presents the effect of same-gender GP
on female educational choice and performance using the
four outcomes deﬁned above: academic high school track,
STEMM high school credential, compulsory school STEMM
GPA, and high school STEMM GPA.19 Column 1 shows that
girls who are exposed to a female GP during childhood are
5 percentage points more likely to choose an academic pro-
gram in high school (7% relative to the mean). This choice
ensures access to higher education and greatly improves an
individual’s chance of obtaining a university degree.20 Col-
umn 2 explores if GP gender affects the probability of grad-
uating from high school with a STEMM credential (记起
that STEMM specialization can be chosen ﬁrst in the second

version of equation (1) in which the match variable is based on the gender
of the ﬁrst GP the girl was observed with. These results are consistent with
a story of positive selection of girls to male GPs; failing to account for the
endogeneity in GP selection would bias us toward ﬁnding no effects (桌子
A5). Such bias may occur if parents believe male GPs are more competent
than female GPs.

18While the legal framework contains no mention of geographic match-
ing within municipalities, there could potentially be systematic differences
across areas within municipalities that are not absorbed by the municipal-
ity ﬁxed effects. 然而, this concern is alleviated by the previous GP
ﬁxed effects; our results are identiﬁed from girls who went to the same
GP in the same location but then were moved to differently gendered new
GPs.

19Missing data for a small number of individuals for some of the outcomes
means that there are minor differences in sample sizes between the different
columns.

20Table A6 shows results from equation (1) using non-STEMM academic
track and nonacademic track as outcomes. The results show that girls are
pulled into the STEMM track from both of these groups, though more than
two-thirds are coming from academic non-STEMM programs.

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CAN FEMALE DOCTORS CURE THE GENDER STEMM GAP?

627

TABLE 2.—EFFECT OF SAME-GENDER GP ON EDUCATIONAL CHOICE AND PERFORMANCE

High school
academic track

High school
STEMM credential

Compulsory school
STEMM GPA

High school
STEMM GPA

0.052***
(0.017)
0.736
8,679

0.039**
(0.018)
0.194
8,424

0.084**
(0.039)
4.297
8,617

0.109***
(0.039)
3.993
8,258

A: Girls

Same-gender GP

意思是
观察结果

乙: Boys

Same-gender GP

意思是
观察结果

0.002
(0.025)
0.600
5,338
The table shows the β1 coefﬁcients obtained through estimation of equation (1) as described in the text and reproduced here for clarity: yi = α + β1GP_Matchi + τt + πm + θc + ρd + (西德:2)我. yi is a general term
denoting the outcome listed at the top of each column, and each estimation includes municipality (πm), year of swap (τt ), birth year (θc), and previous GP (ρd ) ﬁxed effects. The point estimates depicted in the table
should be interpreted as the effect of random assignment to same-gender GP in childhood on the outcome listed at the top of the column. Standard errors are clustered at the level of the exogenously assigned GP.
Sample includes all girls (男孩们) born between 1988 和 1996 who were subject to at least one exogenous GP swap prior to age 15. Signiﬁcant at ∗10%, ∗∗5%, ∗∗∗1%.

0.011
(0.020)
0.807
5,514

0.010
(0.049)
3.940
5,253

−0.038
(0.047)
4.350
5,475

year of high school). The point estimate closely mirrors that
in column 1 and shows that females who are assigned to fe-
male GPs in childhood are 4 percentage points more likely
to obtain a STEMM credential in high school (20% relative
to the mean). Columns 1 和 2 show that female GPs lead
girls to sort into, and graduate from, educational programs
that traditionally have been underrepresented by women and
are associated with larger ﬁnancial returns.

The last two columns of panel A in table 2 examine if fe-
male GPs affect the educational performance of girls. Column
3 presents results for STEMM GPA at the compulsory level
and provides clear evidence of a positive effect of GP match
on performance: the point estimate indicates that a girl who
is exposed to a female GP experiences a 0.084 unit increase
in STEMM GPA. This effect is 0.09 standard deviations
(桌子 1). As discussed in section II, compulsory school GPA
is imperative for admission to selective high school programs,
and this result is consistent with role model exposure moti-
vating individuals to work harder in compulsory school to get
accepted by more selective high school programs.

We also study if the performance effects identiﬁed in com-
pulsory school persist as girls enter high school. 正在检查
academic performance in high school is interesting as se-
lection into STEMM could result in either lower academic
表现 (because STEMM is a more challenging pro-
公克) or higher academic performance (through improved
program match and motivation). Column 4 of table 2 亲-
vides clear evidence of a positive effect of GP gender match
on performance in high school. The point estimate is similar
to the compulsory school STEMM GPA effect. 这表明
that the effect of same-gender GP on educational choice does
not induce worse academic performance.21 Rather, it leads

21As discussed in section II, the exogenous GP swaps are driven by GPs
减少, or terminating, their patient list. List terminations are driven pri-
marily by GP retirement and may be perceived as a cleaner source of ex-
ogenous variation than list reductions. We therefore perform a robustness
check in which we estimate equation (1) using only GP swaps that were
caused by list terminations. Results from this exercise are shown in table
A7. This adjustment leads to larger point estimates and smaller standard
错误.

to improved educational achievement, which could be due to
improved education matching and greater motivation.

The interpretation of our estimates is complicated by the
fact that they are reduced form and may be attenuated by
the fact that nonmatched individuals may also be exposed to
female GPs at some point during their childhood. 我们有
also estimated a modiﬁed version of equation (1) 其中
we instrument whether the child had a female GP at any point
between ages 6 和 15 using the gender of the exogenously
assigned GP as the instrumental variable. The results from
this exercise return ﬁrst-stage F statistics in the 800 范围
and second-stage results that are approximately 50% larger
than our baseline results (table A8). 然而, we encour-
age caution when interpreting these results, because the ﬁrst
stage of this analysis is exclusively driven by girls whose
only female GP is the exogenously assigned GP (compliers).
Girls who would have a female GP regardless of the exoge-
nously assigned female GP (always-takers) do not contribute
to identiﬁcation of the ﬁrst stage. Yet exogenous assignment
to a female GP could have an impact on education outcomes
even for girls who have other female GPs, and the always-
takers might thus contribute to the reduce form effect.

To examine if the same-gender GP effects for girls iden-
tiﬁed in panel A of table 2 extend to boys, panel B provides
results from estimating equation (1) on our boys. The point
estimates are small not statistically signiﬁcant, suggesting
that boys are not affected by same-gender GPs. The results
are consistent with previous literature on this topic in a class-
room setting (Carrell et al. 2010). While the lack of signiﬁ-
cant effects among boys could be due to gender differences
in receptiveness to role models, it could also be because the
channels through which roles models operate (eradication
of stereotype threats and provision of information) are less
important for boys. Speciﬁcally, the percentage of boys in
STEMM is substantial, and there is an abundance of public
ﬁgure male STEMM role models.

Panel B of table 2 also suggests that there is no across-the-
board effect of female GPs on children: if female GPs had a
positive inﬂuence on male children, we would ﬁnd a nega-
tive effect of same-gender GP on boys. This is an interesting

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THE REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS

TABLE 3.—EFFECT OF SAME-GENDER GP ON FEMALES, BY MOTHER’S EDUCATION

High school
academic track

High school
STEMM credential

Compulsory school
STEMM GPA

High school
STEMM GPA

A: Mother college or more

Same-gender GP

意思是
观察结果

乙: Mother less than college

0.029
(0.033)
0.851
2,341

0.035
(0.050)
0.291
2,341

0.021
(0.091)
4.632
2,339

−0.014
(0.098)
4.243
2,337

Same-gender GP

意思是
观察结果

0.093***
(0.024)
0.152
4,643
The table shows the β1 coefﬁcients obtained through estimation of equation (1) as described in the text and reproduced here for clarity: yi = α + β1GP_Matchi + τt + πm + θc + ρd + (西德:2)我. yi is a general term
denoting the outcome listed at the top of each column, and each estimation includes municipality (πm), year of swap (τt ), birth year (θc), and previous GP (ρd ) ﬁxed effects. The point estimates depicted in the table
should be interpreted as the effect of random assignment to same-gender GP in childhood on the outcome listed at the top of the column. Standard errors are clustered at the level of the exogenously assigned GP. 控制板
A includes all girls who were subject to at least one exogenous GP swap prior to age 15 and have a mother with at least a college education. Panel B includes includes all girls who were subject to at least one exogenous
GP swap before age 15 and have a mother with less than a college education. Signiﬁcant at ∗10%, ∗∗5%, ∗∗∗1%.

0.070***
(0.026)
0.675
4,654

0.137**
(0.053)
3.874
4,652

0.101*
(0.054)
4.212
4,637

结果, especially in light of a few cross-sectional studies sug-
gesting that female GPs are associated with slightly better
outcomes for patients than male GPs (Tsugawa et al., 2017).
然而, it is also worth noting that the individuals in our
sample are very young and on average have very few health
问题.

合在一起, the results in table 2 indicate that same-
gender GPs have a signiﬁcant effect on females’, 但不是
males’, educational performance and choice.22 The education
effects we identify are large, but are considerably smaller
than existing differences in the outcome variables by socio-
economic factors such as mother’s income, 教育, 和
marital status (table A10), and fall within the range of the ef-
fects identiﬁed from shorter information interventions in the
classroom (Breda et al., 2018; Porter & Serra, 2019).23 Due
to the lack of statistically signiﬁcant results among boys, 我们
focus on same-gender GP matches on the educational choice
and performance of girls in the remainder of the paper.

乙. Heterogeneity Analysis

Mother education level. The effect of same-gender role
models likely differs across girls depending on the availabil-
ity of same-gender role models in their families and surround-
英格斯. 例如, a girl with a highly educated mother may
beneﬁt less from a female GP than a girl with a less educated
母亲, as many of the channels through which role mod-

22An interesting and policy-relevant question with respect to our results is
whether the effects are driven by increased awareness of females within the
STEMM ﬁelds or due to repeated interactions with a female in STEMM. 到
provide suggestive evidence, we estimate equation (1) separately for those
who remain with their GPs until age 15 and those who do not remain with
他们. These results are speculative as the decision to remain with an exoge-
nously assigned GP is likely endogenous. The results, set out in table A9,
suggest that the effects are driven by girls who remain with their GPs. 骗局-
ditional on the endogeneity issue, this suggests that repeated interactions,
rather than simply increased awareness, drive the effects.

23The male sample is smaller than the female sample, such that our power
to detect effects among boys is smaller. 然而, the differences in es-
timates are substantial, while the standard errors are similar, making it
unlikely that the lack of effects among boys is due to sample size.

els operate (providing higher aspirations, reducing stereotype
威胁, and conveying information) are ﬁlled by the mother.
To examine this possibility, we estimate equation (1) 为了
our core outcomes stratiﬁed by whether the female’s mother
has a college degree. These results, 在表中 3, show that the
role model effects identiﬁed in section IVA are driven by
daughters of less educated mothers. The results highlight that
same-gender role models are important not only for closing
the gender STEMM gap but also for closing the within-gender
socioeconomic STEMM gap. This suggests same-gender role
models may be an important tool for improving intergener-
ational occupational mobility.24 To ensure that this hetero-
geneity is not driven by female GPs being better at commu-
nicating with low-educated families than male GPs, we also
estimate equation (1) for boys of low-educated mothers. 这
results are provided in table A11. None of the coefﬁcients are
statistically signiﬁcant, consistent with our main ﬁndings.

Distributional effects. 方程 (1) estimates the average
treatment effect. 然而, looking only at the mean effect
likely misses important heterogeneity in effect size across
the ability distribution. Speciﬁcally, exposure to same-gender
role models is likely to incentivize students at the right tail
of the ability distribution who satisfy, or are close to satisfy-
英, the requirements for choosing STEMM programs, 尽管
it may not be sufﬁcient for incentivizing students at the left
tail. To explore this, 桌子 4 show results from estimating un-
conditional quantile regressions, using the methodology of
Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2009). With respect to compul-
sory school STEMM GPA, the results in panel A of table 4
suggest that the effect of same-gender GP match on edu-
cational performance loads on individuals in the right tail
of the ability distribution. While the results for high school
STEMM GPA are slightly noisier with respect to quantiles

24The fact that we observe no statistically signiﬁcantly different effect by
the presence of high-educated fathers suggests that the effects are due not
to a general information ﬂow but to information provision unique to the
mother or other same-gender role models (table A12).

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CAN FEMALE DOCTORS CURE THE GENDER STEMM GAP?

629

TABLE 4.—EFFECT OF SAME-GENDER GP ON STEMM GPA: QUANTILE EFFECTS

Quantile
1

Quantile
2

Quantile
3

Quantile
4

Quantile
5

Quantile
6

Quantile
7

Quantile
8

Quantile
9

A: Compulsory school STEMM GPA

Same-gender GP

0.006
(0.030)

乙: High school STEMM GPA

Same-gender GP

−0.027
(0.084)

−0.000
(0.044)

0.060
(0.066)

0.011
(0.032)

0.076
(0.056)

0.011
(0.032)

0.145**
(0.062)

0.082*
(0.043)

0.135**
(0.052)

0.082*
(0.043)

0.156**
(0.063)

0.067*
(0.035)

0.096
(0.058)

0.067*
(0.035)

0.045
(0.067)

0.149*
(0.070)

0.140**
(0.068)

Authors’ estimation of equation (1) as described in the text using the unconditional quantile regression method discussed in Firpo, Fortin, and Lemieux (2009). Regressions include municipality, year of swap, birth
年, and previous GP ﬁxed effects. Standard errors are clustered at the level of the exogenously assigned GP. Sample includes all girls born between 1988 和 1996 who were subject to at least one exogenous GP
swap prior to age 15. Signiﬁcant at ∗10%, ∗∗5%, ∗∗∗1%.

7 和 8 (panel B of table 4), the general pattern of results is
similar to that for compulsory school STEMM GPA.

Age at swap. Average treatment effects from equation (1)
may also miss treatment heterogeneity across age at swap.
Speciﬁcally, it is likely that the effect of being assigned to
a same-gender GP at age 6 is different from being assigned
to a same-gender GP at age 15: young children may be dif-
ferentially affected since the GP-patient interaction likely is
不同的, and children who experience a swap at an earlier
age may be exposed to the new GP for a longer period. 如何-
曾经, this does not mean that we expect the effect to be zero
among girls exposed at a later age. 第一的, the average person
spends around three years with the assigned GP, and the aver-
age exposure time for young girls is not much different from
that of older girls. 第二, individuals exposed at the end of
compulsory school are preparing their high school applica-
系统蒸发散, and it is possible that exposure during this critical time
period is important.

To examine age heterogeneity, we estimate models of the

following form,

Yi = α +

3(西德:2)

a=1

[∂a(ExogSwapia

× GP_Matchi)]

+ τt + πm + θc + ρd + εi,

(2)

where ExogSwapia takes the value 1 if individual i experi-
enced an exogenous swap at age a and 0 否则, grouping
individuals have three age bins: 6 到 9, 10 到 12, 和 13 到
15. These age groups represent distinct stages of the chil-
dren’s educational careers: lower primary education, upper
primary education, and lower secondary education. 期限
× GP_Matchi) is the interaction of age at swap
(ExogSwapia
(A) and gender match. This interaction term takes the value
1 if the person experienced an exogenous swap to a same-
gender GP and the swap happens at that age and 0 如果
person swapped at a different age or did not experience a GP
gender match. These results are shown in ﬁgure 1 for our four
core outcomes.

数字 1 implies that girls who are exogenously assigned
a female GP at an earlier age experience larger effects than
girls exposed at a later age. This suggestive heterogeneity is

largest when examining STEMM GPA in compulsory school
but is also noticeable with STEMM GPA in high school and
STEMM high school credential. With respect to academic
high school track, the effect appears constant across the dif-
ferent age groups. 然而, as shown in table A13, 哪个
provides the full set of point estimates and standard errors
of the results in ﬁgure 1, the effects are noisy and not sta-
tistically signiﬁcantly different from each other. 因此, 这是
only suggestive evidence regarding heterogeneity by age of
swap.

It is also interesting that exposure at ages 13 通过 15,
when children are preparing their high school applications,
is associated with statistically signiﬁcant and economically
meaningful effects. This is consistent with the literature on
role models in the classroom (Breda et al., 2018; Porter &
Serra, 2019) that ﬁnds that information interventions have an
immediate impact on a girl’s educational choice. Having said
那, the point estimate is monotonically declining with age
for all but the academic high school track outcome.

C. Additional Outcomes

Non-STEMM GPA. 桌子 2 shows that female GPs im-
prove the STEMM GPA of female students. 目前还不清楚
that these effects lead to an improvement in overall GPA,
because the improved STEMM GPA could be due to stu-
dents’ spending less time on other subjects. To examine this,
柱子 1 of table 5 shows the result from estimating equa-
的 (1) using non-STEMM GPA as the dependent variable.
This result shows that the STEMM GPA effect in table 2 是
not restricted to STEMM subjects: girls exposed to same-
gender GPs perform better in non-STEMM subjects as well,
though the effects are smaller. It is important to note that ad-
mission to high school and university depends not only on
subject-speciﬁc GPA but also on overall GPA. 因此, a high
STEMM GPA is necessary, but not sufﬁcient, for admission
to STEMM programs.25 The effect on non-STEMM GPA is
consistent with the idea that STEMM role models motivate
individuals to work harder to get accepted into more selective
节目.

25This is a different setting from Carrell et al. (2010), 例如, 在哪里
performance in non-STEM courses does not affect students’ ability to major
in STEM (conditional on passing).

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630

THE REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS

FIGURE 1.—SAME-GENDER ROLE MODEL EFFECTS BY AGE AT SWAP, FEMALES

Authors’ estimation of a modiﬁed version of equation (1) as described in the text and reproduced here for clarity: yi = α + β1GP_Matchi + τt + πm + θc + ρd + (西德:2)我. yi is a general term denoting the outcome listed
at the legend, and each estimation includes municipality (πm), year of swap (τt ), birth year (θc), and previous GP (ρd ) ﬁxed effects. The point estimates depicted in the table should be interpreted as the effect of
random assignment to same-gender GP in the age range denoted on the x-axis. As equation (2) contains both year-of-swap and birth cohort ﬁxed effects, the equation does indirectly control for the main effects for
age at assignment as well (as this is a linear combination of year of swap and birth cohort). Heterogeneity in effect size across age ranges is driven both by differences in the length of exposure and differences in how
susceptible individuals are to role model inﬂuences in the different age ranges. Standard errors are clustered at level of the exogenously assigned GP. Sample includes all girls born between 1988 和 1996 who were
subject to at least one exogenous GP swap prior to age 15.

FIGURE 2.—ESTIMATED EFFECTS WITH VARYING FIXED EFFECTS

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For each of the four outcomes, the following speciﬁcation legend applies:

Speciﬁcation 1: no ﬁxed effects; speciﬁcation 2: cohort-by-municipality ﬁxed effects; speciﬁcation 3: cohort ﬁxed effects and municipality-speciﬁc trends; speciﬁcation 4: cohort, municipality, and year ﬁxed effects;
speciﬁcation 5: cohort, municipality, and year ﬁxed effects, and controls for previous GP characteristics; speciﬁcation 6: cohort and previous GP ﬁxed effects; speciﬁcation 7: cohort, municipality, and previous GP
ﬁxed effects; speciﬁcation 8: cohort, 年, and previous GP ﬁxed effects; speciﬁcation 9: cohort, municipality, 年, and previous GP ﬁxed effects.

CAN FEMALE DOCTORS CURE THE GENDER STEMM GAP?

631

TABLE 5.—EFFECT OF SAME-GENDER GP: ADDITIONAL OUTCOMES

Compulsory school
non-STEMM
GPA

High school
non-STEMM
GPA

大学
enrollment

大学
STEMM
enrollment

大学
药品
enrollment

大学
STEM
enrollment

Same-gender GP

意思是
观察结果
The table shows the β1 coefﬁcients obtained through estimation of equation (1) as described in the text and reproduced here for clarity: yi = α + β1GP_Matchi + τt + πm + θc + ρd + (西德:2)我. yi is a general term
denoting the outcome listed at the top of each column, and each estimation includes municipality (πm), year of swap (τt ), birth year (θc), and previous GP (ρd ) ﬁxed effects. The point estimates depicted in the table
should be interpreted as the effect of random assignment to same-gender GP in childhood on the outcome listed at the top of the column. Standard errors are clustered at the level of the exogenously assigned GP.
Sample includes all girls born between 1988 和 1996 who were subject to at least one exogenous GP swap prior to age 15. Signiﬁcant at ∗10%, ∗∗5%, ∗∗∗1%.

0.067**
(0.028)
4.384
8,678

0.005
(0.017)
0.754
8,680

0.022*
(0.013)
0.077
8,680

0.011
(0.008)
0.019
8,680

0.009
(0.011)
0.059
8,680

0.040*
(0.023)
4.297
8,617

Birth
命令

Siblings

TABLE 6.—BALANCE TEST

Mother years
of education

Mother
年龄

Mother
married

Same-gender GP

0.049
(0.055)
1.698
8,424

0.044
(0.042)
1.865
8,424

0.004
(0.109)
意思是
14.146
观察结果
8,034
The table shows the β1 coefﬁcients obtained through estimation of equation (1) as described in the text and reproduced here for clarity: yi = α + β1GP_Matchi + τt + πm + θc + ρd + (西德:2)我. yi is a general term
denoting the outcome listed at the top of each column, and each estimation includes municipality (πm), year of swap (τt ), birth year (θc), and previous GP (ρd ) ﬁxed effects. The point estimates depicted in the table
should be interpreted as the effect of random assignment to same-gender GP in childhood on the outcome listed at the top of the column. Standard errors are clustered at the level of the exogenously assigned GP. Sample
includes all girls born between 1988 和 1996 who were subject to at least one exogenous GP swap prior to age 15. Mother’s age and marital status are calculated at the year of birth. Mother’s earnings, 教育, 和
employment are measured when the child is 15 years old (when the children in our sample make their high school choices; our data do not extend far back enough for us to get this information at the year of birth).
Signiﬁcant at ∗10%, ∗∗5%, ∗∗∗1%.

0.086
(0.195)
28.974
8,423

0.009
(0.020)
0.567
8,034

0.009
(0.012)
0.066
8,424

Mother not in
labor force

Mother
log income
−0.004
(0.021)
12.740
8,357

Born in
Norway
−0.025
(0.017)
0.861
8,424

College enrollment and college major choice.

In table 5, 我们
examine if the effects on educational choice in compulsory
school and high school persist as individuals enter college.
Looking at these outcomes is important for understanding
the persistence of the role model effects. While Gershenson
等人. (2018) have documented effect persistence with respect
to same-race teachers, we are aware of no studies that have
examined this with respect to same-sex role models. We focus
on two outcomes: the probability of attending college and the
probability of choosing a STEMM major.

Column 3 of table 5 shows that there is no effect on en-
rolling in college, suggesting that same-gender role models
do not have an impact on the extensive margin of females’
decision to pursue higher education. This result is consistent
with the quantile regression results discussed above, 哪个
suggest that same-gender role models may be effective in
motivating students on the margin but not those at the bottom
of the ability distribution.

Column 4 of table 5 shows that female GPs increase girls’
likelihood of choosing a STEMM college major by 2 百分-
age points. This suggests that female role models can close
the gender gap in college STEMM choice by almost 20%.
The effect is economically large but falls within the range
of the effects that have been identiﬁed from shorter infor-
mation interventions in the classroom. 例如, Breda
等人. (2018) ﬁnd that a one-hour classroom intervention by a
female role model raises the probability that girls enroll in se-
lective STEM tracks in higher education by 30%, 和波特
and Serra (2019) ﬁnd that a 15-minute classroom intervention
by a female economics alumna increases the likelihood that
female students major in economics by 8 百分点
(A 90% 增加).

It is possible that the college STEMM major effect is driven
exclusively by treated individuals being more inclined to pur-
sue medicine. To examine this, we estimate equation (1) 我们-
ing the probability of pursuing medicine and the probability
of pursuing STEM as outcomes. The results are shown in
the last two columns of table 5. While we lack statistical
power to identify precise effects at this disaggregated level,
the standard errors are smaller than the point estimates, 和
the results show that about half of the effect comes from en-
rolling in medicine. 然而, as the share of girls pursuing
medicine is considerably smaller than the share of females
pursuing STEM, the effect of enrolling in medicine is much
larger as a percentage of the mean. This provides evidence
on the channel through which the STEMM effect operates.

V. Balance, Falsiﬁcation, Permutation

and Alternative Pathways

A. Balance Test

The key assumption underlying our estimation strategy is
that the gender of the exogenously assigned GP is orthog-
onal to other characteristics that inﬂuence the educational
outcomes we study. To examine this assumption, we conduct
a balance test in which we regress a set of predetermined
characteristics on the gender match of the assigned GP us-
ing equation (1). If the GP gender is orthogonal to individual
characteristics that may inﬂuence future educational deci-
西翁, this exercise should produce small and not statistically
signiﬁcant point estimates.

The results from this exercise, presented in table 6, sup-
port our identifying assumption, showing small and not

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632

THE REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS

TABLE 7.—PLACEBO TESTS; POST-HIGH SCHOOL GP SWAPS

High school
academic track

High school
STEMM credential

Compulsory school
STEMM GPA

High school
STEMM GPA

A: All girls who were subject to their ﬁrst exogenous GP swap between ages 20 和 25

Same-sex GP

意思是
观察结果

0.008
(0.017)
0.759
6,730

−0.005
(0.018)
0.199
6,730

乙: All girls who were subject to their ﬁrst exogenous GP swap between ages 17 和 20

Same-sex GP

意思是
观察结果

−0.007
(0.010)
0.741
16,868

−0.022
(0.036)
3.986
6,730

−0.030
(0.039)
4.120
6,730

−0.028
(0.023)
4.199
14,862

The table shows the β1 coefﬁcients obtained through estimation of equation (1) as described in the text and reproduced here for clarity: yi = α + β1GP_Matchi + τt + πm + θc + ρd + (西德:2)我. yi is a general term
denoting the outcome listed at the top of each column, and each estimation includes municipality (πm), year of swap (τt ), birth year (θc), and previous GP (ρd ) ﬁxed effects. The point estimates depicted in the table
should be interpreted as the effect of random assignment to same-gender GP in childhood on the outcome listed at the top of the column. Standard errors are clustered at the level of the exogenously assigned GP. 这
sample in panel A includes all girls who were subject to their ﬁrst exogenous GP swap between ages 20 和 25. The sample in panel B includes all girls who were subject to their ﬁrst exogenous GP swap between ages
17 和 20. Signiﬁcant at ∗10%, ∗∗5%, ∗∗∗1%.

statistically signiﬁcant point estimates for each characteristic.
A joint test of signiﬁcance for the covariates in table 6 fur-
ther supports the identifying assumption, failing to reject the
null hypothesis that the covariates are jointly unable to pre-
dict the gender of the exogenously assigned GP (p-value of
0.557).26

It is worth noting that the sample used for the balance
test is slightly smaller than that used for the main analysis
due to missing information on parental characteristics for a
small number of girls in our sample. To ensure that this is
not biasing our results, we have also restricted the sample to
girls for whom we have all balance variables, and then we
reestimated our main results. Our results are robust to this
sample restriction (table A17).

乙. GP Characteristics

If GPs are as good as randomly assigned to patients, 然后
GP characteristics should be orthogonal to patient character-
主义. The balancing test in section VA does not reject this
assumption. 然而, a remaining issue is that GP gender
may correlate with other GP characteristics (例如, 年龄), 骗局-
founding our estimates. To examine if nongender GP char-
acteristics are orthogonal to GP gender, we have examined
the distribution of GP characteristics among newly assigned
GPs by estimating the effect of being randomly assigned to a
same-gender GP on nongender GP characteristics. 我们有
also estimated our main equation, including controls for the
nongender characteristics of the newly assigned GP.

The nongender GP characteristics we look at are age and
nationality. Although these are the only nongender GP demo-

graphic characteristics available in our data, we believe that
they represent two of the most important nongender charac-
teristics, since characteristics such as education, certiﬁcation,
and income are similar across GPs: they have the same level
of base training, the quality of medical education is constant
across the four public medical schools in the country, 和
they are paid based on national pay scales. The results from
the ﬁrst exercise are in table A18, and the results from the
second exercise are in table A19. These results support the
claim that GP gender is orthogonal to other GP characteristics
such as age.

C. Falsiﬁcation Test

In addition to balance tests, we perform placebo tests in
which we examine the effect of exogenous GP matches at
年龄 20 到 25 on educational outcomes at the compulsory and
high school levels and the effect of GP matches at ages 17 到
20 on educational outcomes at the compulsory school level.
The vast majority of people aged 20 到 25 have completed
high school, and the vast majority of those aged 17 到 20 有
completed compulsory school. 因此, GP matches after age 19
should not affect compulsory and high school outcomes, 和
GP matches after age 16 should not affect compulsory school
结果. Looking at the results in table 7, we see that all
estimates are much smaller or in the wrong direction and none
are statistically signiﬁcant. These results are inconsistent with
the presence of biases due to nonrandom sorting of children to
GPs of a speciﬁc gender, and support a causal interpretation
of our results.27

26The balance test for males is in table A14, and that for females without
previous GP ﬁxed effects is in table A15. An alternative balance test is to
use the out-of-sample data (girls with no GP swaps) to predict the four main
outcomes with the independent covariates. We can then compare the pre-
dicted outcomes for girls with a female GP and a male GP (after a swap).
These results, provided in table A16, show that there are no statistically sig-
niﬁcant differences between the predicted outcomes for girls with a female
GP and a male GP.

27Another placebo test is to examine the effect of GP gender match on
girls who never visited their GP. The idea behind this test is that these
girls did not interact with the GP and would therefore not be affected by
她. None of the estimates obtained from equation (1) using this sample
are statistically signiﬁcant, and with the exception of the coefﬁcient on
academic high school track, the magnitude of these effects is very close
到 0. 然而, it is difﬁcult to interpret these results due to endogenous
selection into the zero-visit sample and due to the fact that assignment to
same-sex GP may affect the number of times a girl visits the GP.

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CAN FEMALE DOCTORS CURE THE GENDER STEMM GAP?

633

TABLE 8.—P-VALUES OF PERMUTATION TEST

High school
academic track

High school
STEMM credential

Compulsory school
STEMM GPA

High school
STEMM GPA

0.039**
Baseline estimate
% less than baseline
0.053
Number of replications
300
Authors’ estimation of equation (1) as described in the text and reproduced here for clarity: yi = α + β1GP_Matchi + τt + πm + θc + ρd + (西德:2)我. yi is a general term denoting the outcome listed at the top of each
柱子, and each estimation includes municipality (πm), year of swap (τt ), birth year (θc), and previous GP (ρd ) ﬁxed effects. The table shows the proportion of times the estimates from the permutation tests are
smaller than the baseline estimate. We run 300 simulations in which we randomly assign GPs to children. Standard errors are clustered at level of the exogenously assigned GP. Sample includes all girls born between
1988 和 1996 who were subject to at least one exogenous GP swap prior to age 15. The asterisks accompanying the estimates correspond to the level of statistical signiﬁcance of our baseline estimates, and are included
to facilitate the interpretation of the results. Signiﬁcant at ∗10%, ∗∗5%, ∗∗∗1%.

0.109***
0.020
300

0.052***
0.010
300

0.084**
0.053
300

D. Permutation Tests

Another concern is that we are simply picking up ran-
dom noise and that our results are independent of treatment
assignment. To investigate this issue, we perform a series of
permutation tests in which we randomly reassign treatment to
GPs and reestimate equation (1) using this re-randomization.
We perform the permutations 300 times for our four core out-
comes and examine where the effects identiﬁed in table 2 fall
relative to these 300 placebo estimates. If the results in table
2 represent true effects of same-gender GP assignment, 这
estimates in that table should be larger than the vast majority
of these simulations.

桌子 8 displays our baseline estimates and the p-values
obtained from the permutation exercises. The asterisks ac-
companying the estimates correspond to the level of statisti-
cal signiﬁcance of our baseline estimates and are included to
facilitate the interpretation of the results. The p-values pro-
duced by the permutation exercises greatly resemble those
obtained in the baseline estimation. We can therefore reject
the null hypothesis that any combination of treatment would
generate the same magnitude of treatment effects as that dis-
played in table 2.

乙. Ruling Out Alternative Pathways

In addition to a direct role model mechanism between girls
and GPs, some of the identiﬁed effects may operate through
children’s health and parents. 第一的, GPs may affect how girls
interact with the health system. 例如, girls may be
more comfortable with female GPs and be more likely to dis-
close health issues and receive treatment. It is also possible
GPs are better able to relate to same-gender patients. 尽管
it is unlikely that this would affect education choices, im-
proved health could affect educational performance and may
provide an additional pathway through which our effects op-
erate. 第二, it is also possible that some of the effects we
identify operate through mothers’ exposure to same-gender
GPs. Speciﬁcally, mothers’ interactions with the GP might
expose them to female STEMM role models, which could
have an impact on their outcomes directly and children’s out-
comes indirectly (through improved resources at home or
through access to better information via the mother).28

28Not only because mothers are likely to accompany their children to the
GP but also because children are generally assigned to the same GP as their
母亲.

To examine the existence of a potential health-based, 非-
role model channel, we estimate equation (1) using a battery
of health-related outcomes measured at age 15: GP visits,
number of diagnoses, mental health diagnoses, birth control
访问, fertility (admission for delivery), and probability of
remaining with the assigned GP. To examine if any of our
effects operate through indirect role model inﬂuences via the
mother’s interaction with the GP, we estimate equation (1)
using a set of education, 劳动, and health outcomes of the
mother when the child is 15.

Panel A (health-based channel) and panel B (indirect ef-
fect through the mother) of table 9 show these results. 这
results in panel A show that GP gender match does not have
an impact on the health-related outcomes of the child. 这
one exception is fertility, which displays a statistically signif-
icant effect. 然而, the point estimate is not economically
meaningful. The results in panel B show that assignment to a
same-gender GP does not affect the mother’s education, 这-
bor market, and health outcomes. 合在一起, 结果
在表中 9 suggest that the effects we identify in section IV
are unlikely to operate through a health-based, nonrole model
channel or an indirect role model channel via the mother’s
interaction with the GP.

The lack of a health-based, nonrole model channel is an
important ﬁnding, as one of the main concerns with exist-
ing research on same-gender role models in the classroom
has been that it may represent differences in teaching prac-
tices rather than true role model effects. While we acknowl-
edge that there are additional unobserved health outcomes
that we cannot examine, it is unlikely that they are driving
our ﬁndings as they would have to be uncorrelated with all
the outcomes in table 9, not subsumed by the ﬁxed effects
in equation (1) but correlated with the probability of being
assigned a same-gender GP and the outcomes of interest.

六、. Discussion and Conclusion

We use exogenous assignment of children to GPs to ex-
amine if female role models can reduce the gender gap in
educational choice. This is the ﬁrst paper to study the effects
of female role models in childhood on the long-run educa-
tional outcomes of girls. It is also the ﬁrst paper to explore
the effects of same-gender role model interactions outside the
classroom.

We ﬁnd that exposure to female GPs has a statistically sig-
niﬁcant and economically meaningful positive effect on the

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634

THE REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS

TABLE 9.—POTENTIAL PATHWAYS AND MECHANISMS

A: Potential indirect effects through health

Same-Gender GP

意思是

Number of
GP visits

−0.009
(0.070)
1.166

Still with
assigned GP

−0.014
(0.019)
0.613

Number of
diagnoses

−0.039
(0.028)
2.241

Mental health
diagnosis

Birth control
访问

−0.000
(0.000)
0.078

0.002
(0.005)
0.069

乙: Potential indirect effects through mother

Years of
教育

Same-Gender GP

0.004
(0.109)
14.146

全部的
收入
−0.004
(0.021)
12.740

Not in
labor force

Number of
diagnoses

0.009
(0.012)
0.066

0.176
(0.141)
3.614

Mental health
diagnosis
−0.003
(0.018)
0.186

Fertility

−0.000**
(0.000)
0.000

Birth control
访问

0.001
(0.012)
0.068

Fertility
−0.001
(0.001)
0.003

意思是
The table shows the β1 coefﬁcients obtained through estimation of equation (1) as described in the text: yi = α + β1GP_Matchi + τt + πm + θc + ρd + (西德:2)我. yi denotes the outcome, and each estimation includes
municipality (πm), year of swap (τt ), birth year (θc), and previous GP (ρd ) ﬁxed effects. Standard errors are clustered at the GP. The sample in panel A includes all girls born between 1988 和 1996 who were subject
to an exogenous GP swap prior to age 15. The sample in panel B includes all mothers to girls who were born between 1988 和 1996 and exposed to an exogenous GP swap prior to age 15. Outcomes are measured
when the girls are 15 years old. Income is reported in log form. Signiﬁcant at ∗10%, ∗∗5%, ∗∗∗1%.

probability that girls pursue academic high school programs,
graduate with STEMM credentials from high school, 和
choose STEMM majors at university. A back-of-the-envelope
calculation suggests that female role models can close the
gender gap in college STEMM choice by 20%. This effect is
large but within the range of effects identiﬁed from shorter in-
formation interventions in the classroom. The persistence of
role model effects is interesting given the “leaking pipeline”
phenomenon discussed in the literature.

In terms of mechanisms, our results show that high-ability
girls with limited access to female role models at home (作为
measured by mother’s education) drive the results. This sug-
gests that a main channel through which the effects oper-
ate is information and the elimination of stereotype threats,
enabling individuals with high underlying ability to realize
their full potential. That more than two-thirds of the girls
who switch into STEMM come from other relatively demand-
ing non-STEMM academic tracks reinforces this argument.
We observe no differential effect by the presence of high-
educated fathers, which suggests that the effects are due not
to a general information ﬂow but to information provision
unique to the mother or other same-gender role models. 经过
showing that the effects are conﬁned to those who remain
with their GPs over time, we also provide suggestive evidence
that repeated interactions, rather than just general awareness,
matter for the realization of general role model effects.

While previous literature in economics of education has
documented the value of same-gender role models, we are
the ﬁrst to show that role model effects in education need not
involve classrooms but can arise due to everyday interactions
with other potential nonteacher role models. A particularly
novel feature of our study is ruling out the possibility that
the effects operate through gender differences in health prac-
泰斯. This is interesting as the majority of role model studies
in the classroom have focused on teacher-student interac-
系统蒸发散. A concern with these studies has been that the effects
may simply be driven by gender differences in teaching prac-
泰斯, something that appears unlikely in light of the results
presented here.

Another novel aspect of our study is the ability to examine
the effects of role models before any educational decisions
have been made and how these effects differ by age at swap.
一般来说, the results provide suggestive evidence that earlier
exposure generates larger effects (consistent with research on
early childhood investments). 然而, the results show that
exposure during the ﬁnal phase of compulsory school, 什么时候
students prepare their high school applications and decide
which type of track to choose, also matters.

最后, by following individuals over time and examin-
ing the persistence of the effects as individuals enter college
and choose majors, we demonstrate that role model effects
are long-lasting and perhaps deserving of even more policy
注意力. Speciﬁcally, the ﬁndings imply that intentionally
matching girls to female role models (医生, professors,
supervisors, mentors) and scaling up existing same-gender
mentorship programs may be effective policy tools for nar-
rowing the gender gap in educational choice and labor market
结果.

In contextualizing our results, it is important to note that
Norway ranks as one of the most gender-equal countries in
世界 (WEF, 2018). 然而, it is difﬁcult to speculate
whether we would expect larger or smaller effects in coun-
tries with greater gender inequality. 一方面, 女性
role model effects may be larger in countries where female
role models are rare. 另一方面, same-gender role
models may interact positively with a country that is more
progressive on gender, such that the effects are smaller in
countries where female role models are rare.29 Nevertheless,
we believe that the general pattern of our results is relevant to
a large number of countries and settings. Norway is still far
from reaching perfect gender equality, and similar to other
OECD countries, the gender-divided labor market represents
the largest challenge to reaching this goal. 例如, fe-
males are more likely to work part-time (36.8% compared
到 12.5%), more likely to work in the public sector (70.1%
of public employees are women), less likely to hold lead-
ership positions (35.3% of individuals in leadership posi-
tions are females), and the annual income is only 70% 的

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CAN FEMALE DOCTORS CURE THE GENDER STEMM GAP?

635

income of males (SSB 2018). In terms of education, 女性
dominate nursing, 福利, and teaching degrees at college
and are less likely to major in natural science, 导致
gender-segregated occupational patterns (SSB, 2018). 因此,
we cannot speak to how the effects would differ across coun-
尝试, but we believe that our results generalize to the majority
of OECD countries that are actively working toward gender
parity and face similar labor market barriers.

29This ambiguity is further exempliﬁed by the gender-equality paradox,
in which countries with greater equality have been observed to have a more
unequal gender distribution in STEM ﬁelds. 例如, the share of fe-
male tertiary graduates in science in Norway is lower than that in countries
that are commonly considered less gender equal; see UNESCO (2015).

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