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The sexual harassment of female active-duty personnel: Effects on job satisfaction and intentions to remain in the military

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  • Antecol, Heather
  • Cobb-Clark, Deborah

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between sexual harassment and the job satisfaction and intended turnover of active-duty women in the U.S. military using unique data from a survey of the incidence of unwanted gender-related behavior conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense. Overall, 70.9 percent of active-duty women reported experiencing some type of sexually harassing behavior in the 12 months prior to the survey. Using single-equation probit models, we find that experiencing a sexually harassing behavior is associated with reduced job satisfaction and heightened intentions to leave the military. However, bivariate probit results indicate that failing to control for unobserved personality traits causes single-equation estimates of the effect of the sexually harassing behavior to be overstated. Similarly, including women’s views about whether or not they have in fact been sexually harassed directly into the single equation model reduces the estimated effect of the sexually harassing behavior itself on job satisfaction by almost a half while virtually eliminating it for intentions to leave the military. Finally, women who view their experiences as sexual harassment suffer additional negative consequences over and above those associated with the behavior itself.
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  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:61:y:2006:i:1:p:55-80
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    3. C Green & J S Heywood, 2007. "Are flexible contracts bad for workers? Evidence from job satisfaction data," Working Papers 590927, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    4. Meraiah Foley & Sarah Oxenbridge & Rae Cooper & Marian Baird, 2022. "‘I’ll never be one of the boys’: Gender harassment of women working as pilots and automotive tradespeople," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 1676-1691, September.
    5. John J. Donohue III, 2005. "The Law and Economics of Antidiscrimination Law," NBER Working Papers 11631, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Abi Adams-Prassl & Kristiina Huttunen & Emily Nix & Ning Zhang, 2022. "Violence against women at work," Economics Series Working Papers 979, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    7. Kaushik Basu, 2003. "The Economics and Law of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 141-157, Summer.
    8. Amitrajeet A. Batabyal & Hamid Beladi, 2020. "A game-theoretic model of sexual harassment," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1281-1291.
    9. Antecol, Heather & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A., 2008. "Identity and racial harassment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 66(3-4), pages 529-557, June.
    10. Cici, Gjergji & Hendriock, Mario & Jaspersen, Stefan & Kempf, Alexander, 2019. "#MeToo meets the mutual fund industry: Productivity effects of sexual harassment," CFR Working Papers 19-03, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    11. 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.
    12. Azmat, Ghazala & Boring, Anne, 2020. "Gender Diversity in Firms," IZA Policy Papers 168, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Chitra Jogani & Gerardo Ruiz Sánchez, 2023. "An empirical analysis of sexual harassment case outcomes in academia," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 43(4), pages 1593-1600.
    14. Rainer Widmann & Michael E. Rose & Marina Chugunova, 2023. "Allegations of Sexual Misconduct, Accused Scientists, and Their Research," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 419, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    15. Joni Hersch, 2018. "Valuing the risk of workplace sexual harassment," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 111-131, October.
    16. Heather Antecol & Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Eric Helland, 2014. "Bias in the Legal Profession: Self-Assessed versus Statistical Measures of Discrimination," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(2), pages 323-357.
    17. 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.
    18. Antecol, Heather & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A., 2010. "The effect of community-level socio-economic conditions on threatening racial encounters," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 517-529, November.
    19. repec:lan:wpaper:3171 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Antecol, Heather & Barcus, Vanessa E. & Cobb-Clark, Deborah, 2009. "Gender-biased behavior at work: Exploring the relationship between sexual harassment and sex discrimination," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 782-792, October.
    21. Sánchez, Gonzalo E. & Rhodes, Lauren A. & Espinoza, Nereyda E. & Borja, Viviana, 2022. "Assessing the Gap between Social and Individual Perceptions of Sexual Harassment," MPRA Paper 112711, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Joni Hersch, 2011. "Compensating Differentials for Sexual Harassment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 630-634, May.
    23. 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).

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    More about this item

    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

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