IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ilrrev/v57y2004i3p443-461.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Changing Nature of Employment-Related Sexual Harassment: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Government, 1978–1994

Author

Listed:
  • Heather Antecol
  • Deborah Cobb-Clark

Abstract

This paper examines the changing nature of attitudes toward and reports of sexual harassment using data for 1978–94 drawn from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (USMSPB) of the U.S. federal government. The authors find that although unwanted sexual behavior reported by federal government employees changed only slightly in overall incidence over the period, its pattern changed noticeably. Unwanted sexual attention by supervisors, for example, declined in incidence; crude and offensive behavior by co-workers increased; and the likelihood that harassment would occur only once (rather than repeatedly) increased. Employees' attitudes toward sexual harassment changed markedly, with a dramatically increased willingness to define unwanted sexual behavior as sexual harassment. This trend appears to have been due not to changes in employees' demographic, human capital, and job characteristics, but rather to structural changes in their views of what constitutes sexual harassment.

Suggested Citation

  • Heather Antecol & Deborah Cobb-Clark, 2004. "The Changing Nature of Employment-Related Sexual Harassment: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Government, 1978–1994," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 57(3), pages 443-461, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:57:y:2004:i:3:p:443-461
    DOI: 10.1177/001979390405700307
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001979390405700307
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/001979390405700307?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Heather Antecol & Deborah Cobb‐clark, 2003. "Does Sexual Harassment Training Change Attitudes? A View from the Federal Level," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 84(4), pages 826-842, December.
    2. David N. Laband & Bernard F. Lentz, 1998. "The Effects of Sexual Harassment on Job Satisfaction, Earnings, and Turnover among Female Lawyers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(4), pages 594-607, July.
    3. Leonard, Jonathan S, 1990. "The Impact of Affirmative Action Regulation and Equal Employment Law on Black Employment," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 47-63, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Olle Folke & Johanna Rickne, 2023. "Sexual Harassment and Gender Inequality in the Labor Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(4), pages 2163-2212.
    2. Azmat, Ghazala & Boring, Anne, 2020. "Gender Diversity in Firms," IZA Policy Papers 168, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Olle Folke & Johanna Rickne, 2022. "Sexual Harassment and Gender Inequality in the Labor Market [High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms]," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 137(4), pages 2163-2212.
    4. Olle Folke & Johanna Rickne, 2023. "Sexual Harassment and Gender Inequality in the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 137(4), pages 2163-2212.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antecol, Heather & Cobb-Clark, Deborah, 2006. "The sexual harassment of female active-duty personnel: Effects on job satisfaction and intentions to remain in the military," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 55-80, September.
    2. Heather Antecol & Deborah Cobb-Clark, 2009. "Racial harassment, job satisfaction, and intentions to remain in the military," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(3), pages 713-738, July.
    3. Giulia Zacchia & Izaskun Zuazu, 2023. "The Wage Effect of Workplace Sexual Harassment: Evidence for Women in Europe," Working Papers Series inetwp205, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & Joshua D. Angrist, 2001. "Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of the Americans with Disabilities Act," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(5), pages 915-957, October.
    5. Sansone, Dario, 2019. "Pink work: Same-sex marriage, employment and discrimination," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    6. Kenneth Y. Chay, 1998. "The Impact of Federal Civil Rights Policy on Black Economic Progress: Evidence from the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 51(4), pages 608-632, July.
    7. Michael A. Shields & Melanie E. Ward, "undated". "Improving Nurse Retention in the British National Health Service: The Impact of Job Satisfaction on Intentions to Quit," Discussion Papers in Public Sector Economics 00/3, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.
    8. Finis Welch, 2003. "Catching Up: Wages of Black Men," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 320-325, May.
    9. Picard, Pierre M. & Zenou, Yves, 2015. "Urban Spatial Structure, Employment and Social Ties: European versus American Cities," IZA Discussion Papers 9166, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Leontaridi, Rannia & Ward-Warmedinger, Melanie E., 2002. "Work-Related Stress, Quitting Intentions and Absenteeism," IZA Discussion Papers 493, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Claudia Goldin, 2005. "From the valley to the summit: a brief history of the quiet revolution that transformed women's work," Regional Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Q 1, pages 5-12.
    12. Harris Selod & Yves Zenou, 2006. "City Structure, Job Search and Labour Discrimination: Theory and Policy Implications," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(514), pages 1057-1087, October.
    13. Francisco Diez-Canseco & Mauricio Toyama & Liliana Hidalgo-Padilla & Victoria J. Bird, 2022. "Systematic Review of Policies and Interventions to Prevent Sexual Harassment in the Workplace in Order to Prevent Depression," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-16, October.
    14. Queneau, Hervé & Sen, Amit, 2012. "On the structure of US unemployment disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and gender," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(1), pages 91-95.
    15. Emanuela Antonazzo & Anthony Scott & Diane Skatun & Robert. F. Elliott, 2003. "The labour market for nursing: a review of the labour supply literature," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(6), pages 465-478, June.
    16. Mirjam Strupler Leiser & Stefan C. Wolter, 2017. "Empirical Evidence on the Effectiveness of Social Public Procurement Policy: The Case of the Swiss Apprenticeship Training System," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 31(2), pages 204-222, June.
    17. Antecol, Heather & Barcus, Vanessa E. & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A., 2007. "Gender-Biased Behavior at Work: What Can Surveys Tell Us About the Link Between Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination?," IZA Discussion Papers 2647, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Amano-Patiño, N. & Aramburu, J. & Contractor, Z., 2022. "Is Affirmative Action in Employment Still Effective in the 21st Century?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2262, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    19. Joni Hersch, 2015. "Sexual harassment in the workplace," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 188-188, October.
    20. Michael A. Shields & Stephen Wheatley Price, "undated". "Racial Harassment, Job Satisfaction and Intentions to Quit: Evidence from the British Nursing Profession," Discussion Papers in Public Sector Economics 01/2, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:57:y:2004:i:3:p:443-461. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.ilr.cornell.edu .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.