Sexual harassment and gender inequality in the labor market
Sexual harassment and gender inequality in the labor market
Author Olle Folke
Author Johanna Rickne
Abstract This paper offers a comprehensive empirical analysis of sexual harassment in the Swedish labor market. First, we use nationally representative survey data linked with employer-employee data to describe rates of self-reported sexual harassment across occupations and workplaces. The risk of sexual harassment is clearly imbalanced across the sex segregated labor market. In gender-mixed and male-dominated occupations and workplaces, women have a higher risk than men, and men have a higher risk than women in female-dominated contexts. We use a hypothetical job-choice experiment with vignettes for sexual harassment to measure the disutility of sexual harassment risks. Both men and women have an equally high willingness to pay for avoiding workplaces where sexual harassment has occurred. But the willingness to pay is conditional on the sex of the fictional harassment victim. People reject workplaces where the victim is the same sex as themselves, but not where the victim is of the opposite sex. We return to the administrative data to study employer compensation for the disutility of sexual harassment risks. Within workplaces, a high risk is associated with lower, not higher wages. People who self-report sexual harassment also have higher job dissatisfaction, more quit intentions, and more actual quits. Both these patterns indicate a lack of full compensation. We conclude that sexual harassment should be conceptualized as gender discrimination in workplace amenities, and that this discrimination reinforces sex segregation and pay-inequalities in the labor market.
Pages 50
Publication The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Reading Notes:
Objective: What is the role of discrimination in work conditions in sex segregation in the workplace
Importance: Men & women may equally prefer a workplace without sexual harassment. But with sexual harassment women face a tradeoff for high wage jobs, men have additional disincentives for taking low wage female dominated jobs
Background: Women work in different occupations (w/ lower pay) than men
Definition of sexual harassment: 1) Unwanted sexual attention 2) sexual hostility 3) sexist hostility 4) sexual coercion
Data & Key Variables: Swedish administrative data + survey of sexual harassment
Share of workers by sex
Categorize workplace in the survey with vignettes expressing sexist hostility, sexual hostility, & unwanted sexual attention
Methodology: Survey respondents given choices of 2 jobs with varying wages, flexible hours, & office environment as characterized by the vignettes
Results: Women face higher risk of sexual harassment in male-dominated workplaces, and vice-versa for men (more harassment of sexual minorities). Not true of general bullying.
WTP for a workplace without sexual harassment = 10% of wage
Women do not appear to be compensated for their increased risk of sexual harassment
Women who experience sexual harassment tend to switch to more female dominated jobs
Key Table/Figure: