The Changing Nature of Employment-Related Sexual Harassment

Evidence from the U.S. Federal Government, 1978–1994

Bibliographic Data

ID7801772
AuthorsHeather Antecol (Claremont McKenna College), Deborah A Cobb‐clark (0000-0003-2895-7886), Deborah Cobb-Clark
Year2004
Volume57
Issue3
Pages443-461
Publication date2004-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueIndustrial and Labor Relations Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-7939 • E-ISSN: 2162-271X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/001979390405700307
OpenAlexW3121451329
ISBN9793904057003
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited18

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

Criminology · Demographic economics · Economics · Government (linguistics) · Harassment · Management · Offensive · Political science · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Psychology · Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub