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Harassment in Canadian workplaces

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by Darcy Hango and Melissa Moyser

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Today, Insights on Canadian Society is releasing a study in partnership with Statistics Canada's Centre for Gender, Diversity and Inclusion Statistics. This study uses data from the General Social Survey on Canadians at Work and Home.

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Introduction

Workplace harassment refers to objectionable or unwelcome conduct, comments, or actions by an individual, at any event or location related to work, which can reasonably be expected to offend, intimidate, humiliate or degrade. Harassment in the workplace comes in a variety of forms, as it can range from interpersonal mistreatment,^Note such as disrespect, condescension and degradation (often referred to as workplace incivility^Note ), to more physical forms of harassment such as physical assault (which may also be referred to as workplace violence), sexual assault, bullying or the threat of harm.^Note

Harassment in the workplace has far-reaching effects on the health and well-being of workers, as well as on their job tenure, job stability and job satisfaction. It may also have an impact on the overall economy resulting from costs associated with absenteeism, lost productivity and job turnover^Note .

This paper uses data from the 2016 General Social Survey (GSS) on Canadians at Work and Home to examine experiences of workplace harassment in the past year among Canadians aged 15 to 64 who worked for pay during the past 12 months (see the Data sources, methods and definitions section).^Note In the GSS, workplace harassment refers to experiences of verbal abuse, humiliating behaviour, threats, physical violence, and unwanted sexual attention or sexual harassment that are reported by Canadians.^Note

In the first half of the paper, statistical information about the prevalence of workplace harassment, as well as information on the type and source of harassment, is presented. It also identifies personal and workplace characteristics that increase the likelihood of experiencing workplace harassment.

The second part of the paper explores the relationship between workplace harassment and various indicators of personal well-being (such as mental health and stress) and workplace well-being (such as job satisfaction and sense of belonging to the organization).

Women report higher levels of workplace harassment than men

In the 2016 GSS, respondents can report if they suffered from verbal abuse, humiliating behaviour, threats, physical violence, and unwanted sexual attention or sexual harassment in the workplace over the past 12 months. Even though this definition can differ from past studies of workplace harassment, the five dimensions of workplace harassment examined in the GSS align relatively well with other harassment constructs observed in the literature.^Note

On the basis of this definition, 19% of women reported that they had experienced harassment in their workplace in the past year, while 13% of men reported it. The most common type of workplace harassment was verbal abuse, with 13% of women and 10% of men reporting having experienced it in the past year (Chart 1). The next most common type was humiliating behaviour, which was reported by 6% of women and 5% of men, while 3% of each had experienced threats. Physical violence in the workplace was experienced by significantly more women than men, at 3% versus 1.5%. Sexual harassment or unwanted sexual attention was more prevalent among women (4%) than men (less than 1%).

Source of workplace harassment differs for men and women

In the 2016 GSS, six different perpetrators are listed as potentially responsible for harassment in the workplace in the past year: supervisor or manager, colleague or peer, employee, client or customer, board member or shareholder, and other sources. The source of the harassment, or the relationship between the harasser and the person being harassed, matters.^Note For instance, it may be worse for a worker if they are being harassed by a person in a position of authority over them.^{Note Note}

Among people who said they were harassed in the past year at work, 53% of women said a client or customer was responsible for the harassment, compared with 42% of men (Chart 2). For men, the next most common source of harassment in the workplace was their supervisor or manager, at 39%, while 32% of women said the same.^Note It was also relatively common for both men and women to have been harassed by a colleague or peer, at 35% for men and 34% for women, while it was less common to have been harassed by an employee, or a board member or shareholder.

Gender differences in non-sexual workplace harassment driven by occupation type

In order to better understand the pertinent characteristics of those who reported being harassed at work in the past year, two separate subsamples are used. The first subsample includes all types of harassment listed in Chart 1, while the second subsample excludes those who said they had experienced sexual harassment. By examining characteristics in this way, it is possible to somewhat isolate the effects of sexual harassment, which are described later in the paper.^Note

The factors examined in this section are separated into (a) sociodemographic factors, including gender, age, highest level of education, ethnicity, immigration status, sexual orientation, province of residence, personal income, marital status, presence of young children in the home, and physical mobility limitation; and (b) workplace characteristics, including workplace size (number of workers), terms of employment (which takes regular work hours into account), union status, and occupational group.^Note

In the discussion that follows, results are expressed as predicted probabilities, which can be interpreted as the likelihood that people belonging to a certain group will experience workplace harassment when other factors are taken into account. This can be done with a logistic regression model, with workplace harassment as a dependent variable, and the groups of variables listed above as independent variables.

According to the results, women reported higher rates of workplace harassment than men. When all types of harassment—including unwanted sexual attention—are considered, women reported a higher probability (18%) than men (14%) of being harassed at work in the past year (Table 1). These rates are adjusted for numerous sociodemographic variables (Model 1). The difference between women and men remains significant when workplace factors (Model 2) are factored in. In contrast, in the sample that excludes sexual harassment, there is a 2 percentage point gap separating women and men (15% versus 13%)—a gap that disappears once workplace characteristics (including occupations) are taken into account (Model 2). In other words, the gender gap in reported workplace harassment disappears when the occupational group is factored in, but only if sexual harassment is not included in the definition of harassment. In cases where sexual harassment is included in the overall harassment indicator, the gender gap persists.

Other significant sociodemographic characteristics of workplace harassment include education, income, visible minority status, marital status and physical mobility limitations. With respect to education, the probability of experiencing harassment was 21% among those who had a bachelor’s degree or higher, a finding that is almost 10 percentage points higher than for those whose highest level of education is a high school diploma. This result is present in both subsamples. In addition, respondents at the highest income level ($120,000 or more) reported a significantly lower risk of workplace harassment in the past year than individuals who earned less than $40,000 after controlling for occupation.

Across all models, visible minority workers said they were less likely to have experienced workplace harassment in the past year. For example, the probability to report harassment was 13% among visible minorities, compared with 17% for non-visible minorities.^Note Meanwhile, with respect to marital status, a consistent finding is that married people were less likely to experience workplace harassment than the single or never-married population. Lastly, the likelihood of reporting workplace harassment was 23% among individuals who had a mobility limitation affecting their daily activity—7 percentage points higher than those who did not report a similar mobility limitation.

Health occupations and unionized jobs have the highest rates of workplace harassment

The results in Table 1 show that workplace characteristics are also related to workplace harassment, particularly unionization and type of occupation. Across all workers, with respect to unionization, those who worked in a unionized position were more likely to say they were the victim of harassment in the workplace in the past year.^Note Specifically, workers in unionized jobs had a 6 percentage point higher probability (regardless of whether sexual harassment was included or not) than workers in non-unionized jobs (20% versus 14% for all forms of harassment); this finding remains even after adjusting for a wide range of sociodemographic and other workplace characteristics. However, it was found that workers in unionized jobs who had been harassed were more likely to say they had tried to address the harassment than workers in non-unionized jobs. The difference was especially pronounced in instances of reported verbal abuse. For instance, 12% of workers in unionized jobs reported that the verbal abuse had been addressed compared with 6% of workers in non-unionized jobs.

In order to examine the effect of occupation on the experience of workplace harassment in this analysis, the 2016 10-category National Occupational Code (NOC) is used. The 10 categories are combined into 7 categories to accommodate sample size. The following 7 occupational categories are used: management occupations; business, finance and administrative occupations; natural and applied sciences occupations; health occupations; education, law, social and related occupations; sales and service occupations; and trades and related occupations.^Note

Workers in health occupations had the highest probability of reporting harassment on the job in the past year at 23%. Relative to workers in health occupations, the probability was significantly lower in most of the other occupational categories, particularly in natural and applied sciences (9%).

It is informative to examine the predicted probabilities of workplace harassment across occupational groups separately for men and women. The results, shown in Table 2, are based on a series of logistic regressions.^Note Results show that 27% of women and 21% of men in health occupations indicated that they had been harassed in the workplace in the past year. The difference between health and other occupations is more pronounced for women, even after adjusting for a wide range of factors. Women in health occupations experienced workplace harassment significantly more than women in all other occupations, with the exception of management and sales and service occupations. The finding of a relatively high rate of workplace harassment in health occupations is consistent with past evidence pointing to the same conclusion.^{Note Note}

About 4% of women reported being sexually harassed in the workplace

The Canada Labour Code establishes employees’ rights to employment free of sexual harassment, and requires employers to take positive action to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. The Canada Labour Code (R.S.C., 1985, c. L-2) defines sexual harassment as “any conduct, comment, gesture or contact of a sexual nature (a) that is likely to cause offence or humiliation to any employee; or (b) that might, on reasonable grounds, be perceived by that employee as placing a condition of a sexual nature on employment or on any opportunity for training or promotion.”

In 2016, 4% of Canadian women reported being sexually harassed in the workplace in the past year, compared with less than 1% of men. This section focuses on women’s experiences of sexual harassment in the workplace (the number of men with these experiences is not sufficient to support a more detailed analysis). Although most of the women who reported being sexually harassed in the workplace in the past year were targeted by one perpetrator (74%), just over one-quarter of them were targeted by multiple perpetrators (26%).

While the 2016 GSS does not include information on the sex of perpetrators, it does nevertheless demonstrate that supervisors and managers are less likely to be perpetrators than clients or customers, and colleagues or peers. Among women who were sexually harassed in the workplace in the past year, 15% were targeted by supervisors or managers (Chart 3).^Note In comparison, 56% of women who reported that they had been sexually harassed in the workplace were targeted by clients or customers, and 44% were targeted by colleagues or peers. Some research suggests that clients and customers as well as colleagues and peers are more frequent perpetrators of sexual harassment in the workplace than supervisors or managers because they have more opportunities to interact with potential targets.^Note

Certain personal characteristics are associated with greater vulnerability to sexual harassment in the workplace among women. Specifically, young and unmarried women were more likely to report being sexually harassed in the workplace in the past year than older and married women. For example, 7% of women aged 15 to 24 reported that they had been sexually harassed in the workplace, compared with 1% of women aged 55 to 64 (Table 3). Furthermore, 7% of single or never-married women reported having been sexually harassed in the workplace, compared with 2% of married women. While such results suggest that perpetrators are more likely to target young and unmarried women, it may also be that age and marital status are proxies for less seniority at work and poor job quality—factors that may increase the likelihood of experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace to the extent that they imply low organizational power.^{Note Note Note} In addition, it was found that lesbian and bisexual women were more likely to report being sexually harassed in the workplace in the past year than heterosexual women (11% versus 4%).

No significant differences were found between foreign-born and Canadian-born women, or between visible-minority women and women who were not part of a visible minority group. Aboriginal women, however, were more likely to report such experiences than non-Aboriginal women (10% versus 4%). These results are in line with other research showing that Aboriginal women are generally more vulnerable to sexual violence.^Note Furthermore, Aboriginal women also tend to be younger than non-Aboriginal women, and they are overrepresented in lower-level occupational groups that require less skill, training and experience.^{Note Note}

Workplace harassment is associated with adverse effects both in terms of workplace well-being and life away from work

This part of the paper focuses on the relationship between workplace harassment and indicators that tap into both workplace well-being (such as connectedness, stability and risk of turnover) and personal well-being (such as stress and mental health). Since it is not possible to disentangle cause and effect from the measures in this study, it focuses on exploring the association between concepts. In this section, harassment refers to any form of harassment (i.e., sexual or otherwise) reported by survey respondents in the previous 12 months.

The four workplace well-being indicators examined in this study are satisfaction with their current job; level of motivation to perform their best at the current organization;  likelihood of leaving their job in the next 12 months; and sense of belonging to the current organization. Each of these factors can be potential indicators of feelings of connectedness to the current place of work and the risk of looking for new employment in the near future.

The four personal well-being indicators examined in this study are stress in daily life; general health;^Note mental health; and hopeful view of the future. Each and every one of these is related to the more general well-being of the respondent not specifically associated with the workplace. However, since well-being, health and work are intertwined,^Note it is often difficult to completely disassociate issues at work with those outside the workplace.^Note In each case, two sets of results are presented: unadjusted results and adjusted results, which take other factors that may also affect personal and workplace well-being into account.

Each of these factors has a significant relationship with workplace harassment; for the most part, the association appears to be about the same for both men and women.^Note That said, workplace harassment has a relatively strong relationship with job dissatisfaction: for example, the proportion of women who said they were dissatisfied with their current job more than tripled from less than 4% for those who had not experienced harassment to 14% for women who had experienced harassment (Table 4a). Similarly, the proportion of men who said they were dissatisfied with their current job was two times higher among those who experienced harassment (14%) than it was among those who had not (5%).

Almost as strong for men is having low motivation to perform their best at their current organization: the proportion who reported this increases from 9% if they experienced no workplace harassment in the past 12 months to 24% if they did experience workplace harassment. This relationship holds even after taking a wide range of sociodemographic factors into account. A similar result is found for women: 8% who did not report that they had been harassed said they had low motivation to perform their best, compared with 20% among those who reported that they had been harassed.

Workplace harassment also had a strong association with a lower sense of belonging to men’s and women’s current organizations and it increased their likelihood of saying they planned on leaving their job in the next 12 months, but for women the association disappears once a wide range of work and non-work factors are taken into account.

There is also a link between workplace harassment and personal well-being indicators such as stress, mental health and outlook on life (Table 4b). The largest association for men appears to be with poor mental health: 18% of men who reported experiencing workplace harassment in the past year said they had poor mental health, compared with 6% for men who were not harassed. The increase was also seen among women: 16% of women who were harassed in the workplace in the past year said they had poor mental health, compared with 8% for women who were not harassed. The proportion of those who reported stress was also significantly higher among those who experienced workplace harassment. This association remained even when a wide range of sociodemographic and work-related factors were taken into account.

Being harassed by someone in a position of power is associated with negative perceptions about work

Evidence suggests that being harassed in the workplace by a supervisor or another person in a position of power can potentially have more harmful consequences for victims than being harassed by someone without the power imbalance.^Note In the present context, a person in a position of power is defined as either a supervisor or manager. Recall that supervisors or managers were responsible for 39% of workplace harassment for men. For women this proportion was 32%.^Note

For the most part, the relationship between workplace indicators and workplace harassment was even stronger when the harassment came from a supervisor or manager (Table 5a). For example, among men who were harassed by a manager or supervisor, 23% reported low levels of job satisfaction, compared with 9% of those who were harassed by someone other than a person in a position of power. In contrast, 5% of men who did not report workplace harassment had low levels of job satisfaction. Women who were harassed by a person in position of power were also significantly more likely to be dissatisfied with their job, relative to those who had not been harassed.

On a related note, especially strong is the relationship between being harassed by a manager or supervisor and having a weak sense of belonging to the organization. Approximately 16% of both women and men who said they had not been harassed at work in the past year had a weak sense of belonging to their current organization, compared with 47% of men and 34% of women who had been harassed by a supervisor or manager. Also noteworthy is that being harassed by a person in power significantly lowers men’s sense of belonging to their organization compared with being harassed by someone who is not a supervisor or manager. This relationship holds even in models that control for various sociodemographic measures, while for women the difference between the sources of harassment is not significant in unadjusted or adjusted models. Being harassed by a supervisor or manager is also associated with lower employee motivation to perform their best, above and beyond the effect from being harassed by someone who is not a supervisor or manager. The relationship remains even in adjusted models and is present for both men and women.

With respect to non-workplace outcomes, being harassed by a supervisor or manager was also associated with lower self-rated physical and mental health and higher levels of reported stress (Table 5b). However, being harassed by a supervisor or manager showed similar patterns as being harassed by someone who is not a supervisor or manager. In other words, workplace harassment appears to be similarly associated with non-workplace outcomes regardless of the perpetrator. The exception to this was self-rated mental health among men: 25% of men who reported that they had been harassed by a person in a position of power said they had poor mental health, compared with 13% for men who were reported that they had been harassed by someone else. This result is also present for women, but only in unadjusted models.

Conclusion

This paper found that overall, women experienced workplace harassment slightly more than men, at 19%, compared with men, at 13%. While men and women reported similar rates of humiliating behaviour and threats, women were more likely to report verbal abuse, physical violence and unwanted sexual attention or sexual harassment in the workplace. The least frequent type of workplace harassment for women was threats to their person (3%), while for men it was sexual harassment (less than 1%). A closer examination of sexual harassment of women found that over one-quarter of them reported that they were targeted by multiple perpetrators, and that most women (56%) were targeted by clients or customers.

With respect to all forms of workplace harassment, men and women differed slightly on who they were most likely to report as the perpetrator. Men reported that it was a supervisor or manager in greater proportions than women, while women conversely reported a higher proportion of clients or customers. Generally speaking, workplace harassment was also associated with lower levels of workplace well-being and personal well-being for both women and men. The association between workplace harassment and workplace well-being was especially important in the case of those who had been harassed by a supervisor or manager.

Consistent with other research,^Note workers in health-related occupations (which have a higher proportion of women) were more likely to experience workplace harassment. The probability of reporting workplace harassment in the past year was 23% among workers in this category; they were predominantly harassed by clients or customers.

In sum, this paper provided a look into not only the prevalence of workplace harassment across the employed population in Canada, but also into the correlates of harassment, the characteristics of those who were harassed, and the association between harassment and a number of personal and workplace well-being indicators. Workers who reported workplace harassment were more likely to be dissatisfied with their current job, have low motivation to do their best work, be more likely to say they are planning to leave their current work, and have a weak sense of belonging to their workplace. These workers also had worse health—general and mental—as well as higher levels of reported stress, and a less hopeful view of the future. Harassment in the workplace therefore has a considerable impact not only on people’s lives but also on employers.

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