Methodological problems and policy implications in sexual harassment research

This paper argues that the ability of social research to influence legal arguments and policy decisions on sexual harassment in the workplace has been stymied by several methodological problems which are shared by most major studies on the topic. Determination of the incidence of harassment and its major sub-types is difficult because of problems with sampling (e.g., response rate, sample size) and instrument construction (e.g., number or variety of harassment categories). Additionally, severity of harassment is rarely treated as a variable. Several resolutions to these problems are presented. First, estimates of the proportion of women who have experienced harassment, as well as the proportion having experienced the major sub-types of harassment, are derived. Second, a mutually exclusive and exhaustive set of sexual harassment categories, which includes harassment types that have evolved recently from legal decisions and policy developments, is discussed. Finally, an outline of factors which might be used to assess harassment severity is presented. Resolving these issues will provide social scientists and non-scientists alike with clearer answers to the ‘How much?’, ‘Which types?’ and ‘How serious?’ questions about harassment.