In sickness and in health insurance: Gender in household benefit plan choice.

I document that households in the United States are more likely to choose health plans offered by the husband's employer than the wife's. This gap may reflect gender disparities in employment status, plan quality, or an inherent gender effect. Using a novel identification strategy that holds employment status and plan quality fixed, I find that the gender effect increases the probability of selecting the husband's plan by 6.3 percentage points.