Daughters Make a Difference: Doctors' Family Lives Impact Women's Health

A new working paper, utilising administrative data from Denmark, concludes that female patients with male general practitioners who have daughters have a 5.5% lower risk of dying from female-specific cancers such as breast and gynaecological cancers.

"The improvement is likely due to earlier diagnosis of cancer. We find that particularly younger women, who are not yet part of the national breast cancer screening programme, are more often referred to specialists for breast cancer examinations," explains Mette Gørtz, professor at the Department of Economics and CEBI.

She has conducted the study in collaboration with Ida Lykke Kristiansen, postdoc at the Department of Economics, and Tianyi Wang, assistant professor at the University of Toronto.

Greater Trust in Doctors with Daughters

The study suggests that daughters can increase doctors' empathy, and that male doctors with daughters are more responsive to changes in medical guidelines aimed at women.

The research also indicates that female patients have greater trust in and experience better communication with male doctors who have daughters. Patients report higher levels of trust, empathy, and clearer communication, which can be crucial for better health outcomes.

"As our study suggests that increased empathy and improved communication between doctor and patient could potentially be one of the underlying reasons for the results, this might be where efforts should be focused to equalise differences between doctors and reduce gender-based health disparities," points out Ida Lykke Kristiansen.

The researchers hope their work will contribute to a better understanding of how gender inequality in health can be reduced.

The study, titled "The Power of Daughters: How Physicians’ Family Influences Female Patients’ Health," is supported by the ROCKWOOL Foundation. You can read it here