Assessing the Gender Justice Gap

As first seen on in Insurance Times

Mind the gaps
As we approach International Women’s Day, there will inevitably be some focus on the ‘gaps’, the difference between the experiences and outcomes for men and women in the workplace, their financial wellbeing and many other aspects of life.

The gender pay gap, which expresses the difference between the average hourly earnings of men and women, is probably the most discussed and best understood. But various organisations have identified and try to quantify other gender gaps such as the savings gap, the pensions gap and the investment gap.

There’s a gender insurance gap too, which doesn’t get quite as much attention. It’s probably more straightforward to identify in life and health cover, where the numbers of men and women insured and the sums that they are insured for are easier to analyse. But some commentators have identified gaps in other covers too.

There are obviously many reasons that all these gaps exist, some more tangible or valid than others, but there is another gap that should be of particular interest to legal expenses insurers.

Two-tier justice?
The gender justice gap has been identified as a global issue and spans both civil and criminal justice. In the UK, various pieces of research have highlighted gaps in the justice system, in terms of both access and outcomes for women.

It’s important to distinguish this gender justice gap from the ordinary “justice gap” which is much more widely discussed and refers to the number of people that cannot access the legal remedies that should be available to them, typically because of financial barriers to accessing the justice system.

One area of civil justice in which a gender justice gap seems to persist is employment law. Covering the costs of employment disputes is one of the key benefits of both personal and commercial legal expenses policies and one of the covers under which the most claims are made.

There are obviously certain types of employment claim that are only relevant to women, such as suffering a detriment or unfair selection for redundancy on the grounds of pregnancy, as well as other grounds for claim that women are much more likely to face, such as sex discrimination and unequal pay.

Beyond these areas though, women seem to have been at another disadvantage, at least as far as tribunal hearings are concerned. Research of employment tribunal data for the decade between 2011 and 2021 showed that men were more likely than women to have their dispute reach a tribunal.

The reasons for this are obviously diverse and complex, but it remains to be seen whether increased employment protections, such as the Worker Protection Act 2023, implemented late last year will have any impact.

Adding injury to insult
Another area of justice inequity that should be of interest to insurers relates to employer’s liability. The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has analysed data to reveal that, despite representing more than half of work-related illnesses and injuries, women are only about a third as likely as men to make an EL claim.

Again, the reasons that women seem to have far less access to justice in these circumstances are multifarious but, on the face of it, this looks like another route to justice that seems more accessible to men than women.

Getting better?
It would be nice to think that the UK’s attitude to and treatment of women in the workplace has improved in recent years, and that recourse to the justice system is less frequently needed, but research published just last week would suggest otherwise.

A large survey commissioned by the charity Pregnant Then Screwed, shows that the number of women who have lost a job after getting pregnant or taking maternity leave has increased by more than a third, since similar research, following the same methodology, was conducted in 2016.

The survey also revealed that just 2 per cent of the women who had experienced negative consequences at work as a result of their pregnancy, maternity leave or return to work, pursued an employment tribunal claim.

It’s probably too early to say whether new protections introduced by the Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023 and the Maternity Leave, Adoption Leave and Shared Parental Leave (Amendment) Regulations 2024 will have much impact on a woman’s experience in the workplace.

Legal expenses insurers play a valuable role in removing the financial impediment that often blocks paths to justice, but it seems clear that a wider cultural shift is also needed.

New laws only serve their purpose if they are applied and enforced. Until then, it seems likely that the gender justice gap will persist.