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

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

Author Info

Antecol, Heather (Claremont McKenna College)
Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. () (SPEAR Centre, RSSS, Australian National University and IZA Bonn)

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Abstract

This paper examines the changing nature of views towards and reports of sexual harassment using unique data drawn from the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (USMSPB) of the U.S. Federal Government over the period from 1978-1994. Our results indicate that while federal government employees reported only slightly more incidents of employment-related unwanted sexual behavior in 1994 than in 1978, the willingness to define unwanted sexual behavior as sexual harassment increased dramatically over this period. The increased willingness of federal government employees to label certain behaviors as sexual harassment does not appear to be driven by changes in the demographic, human capital and job characteristics of federal government employees, rather the changes appear to be due to structural changes in views (conditional on characteristics) of what constitutes sexual harassment. At the same time, more of the change in the incidence of unwanted sexual behavior on the job itself seems to be explained by changes in human capital and job characteristics. Finally, we find that the qualitative nature of harassment in public-sector employment has changed despite the fact that the incidence of unwanted sexual behavior was relatively constant between 1978 and 1994.

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 619.

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Length: 39 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2002
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp619

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Article
- Heather Antecol & Deborah Cobb-Clark, 2004. "The changing nature of employment-related sexual harassment: Evidence from the U.S. federal government, 1978-1994," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 57(3), pages 443-461, April.

Find related papers by JEL classification:
J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
J28 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Safety; Job Satisfaction; Related Public Policy

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

NEP-ALL-2002-12-02 (All new papers)
NEP-HIS-2002-12-02 (Business, Economic & Financial History)

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

Gregory B. Lewis, 1996. "Gender integration of occupations in the federal civil service: Extent and effects on male-female earnings," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 49(3), pages 472-483, April.

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