Using a field experiment in India where patients are randomly assigned to rank among a set of physicians of the same gender but with different castes and years of experience, we show that the differences in patients’ physician choices are consistent with gender-based statistical discrimination. Labor market experience cannot easily overcome the discrimination that female doctors suffer. Further, we find that gender discrimination is greater for lower caste doctors, who typically suffer from caste discrimination. Given the increasing share of professionals from a lower caste background, our results suggest that the ‘intersectionality’ between gender and caste leads to increased gender inequality among professionals in India.

使用在印度进行的现场实验，患者被随机分配到一组性别相同但具有不同种姓和经验的医生中，我们表明患者选择医生的差异与基于性别的统计歧视是一致的。劳动力市场的经验不能轻易克服女医生遭受的歧视。此外，我们发现通常遭受种姓歧视的低种姓医生的性别歧视更为严重。鉴于来自较低种姓背景的专业人士比例越来越高，我们的研究结果表明，性别和种姓之间的“交叉性”导致印度专业人士之间的性别不平等加剧。