Gender Gap in Access to Justice: The Role of Lawyers and Courts

Previous research indicates that in labor litigation, women workers in China are awarded significantly less compensation than men for the same amount of claim, a pattern that exacerbates the already dire gender inequality in the workplace. This paper examines whether the legal profession and legal institutions can mediate this gender gap. Using more than 90,000 legal decisions issued in 2019 across China, we found that while men and women do not differ in their likelihood of using legal presentation in litigation, women are more likely to utilize legal aid services and men are more likely to use private lawyers. While the presence of both legal aid agents and private lawyers significantly increases the number of evidence presented in a case, which in turn increases the rate of compensation awarded towards the worker, legal aid’s effect is significantly smaller in comparison to that of a lawyer, suggesting that women might benefit less from legal presentation. Additionally, we found that in courts where special gender-focused training program is implemented, the gender gap between compensation rate is non-existent, suggesting the courts’ awareness of and action towards gender dynamics in law suits are consequential in their legal decision-making. These findings have implications for understanding how legal profession and institution can shape the gendered access to justice and provide important insights for policy makers who aspire to design and implement policies that promote gender equality through the law.