Job and Health Outcomes of Gender Harassment and Sexual Harassment Climate among STEM Faculty Members

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Abstract

The persistent underrepresentation of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) women faculty has led to a blossoming of scholarship seeking to understand the challenges women encounter in these fields. Research points to negative workplace climate as a central culprit contributing to negative outcomes among STEM women faculty members. In this paper, we explore how two aspects of workplace climate—gender harassment and sexual harassment climate—are linked to job burnout, turnover intentions, psychological distress, and self-rated physical health. Using data from STEM faculty at a mid-sized university located in the upper Midwest (N = 117 faculty members), we find that perceptions the institution will treat sexual harassment charges seriously (sexual harassment climate) is negatively related to men’s job burnout and psychological distress and positively related to men’s self-rated physical health. In contrast, sexual harassment climate was not significant in predicting any outcomes among women faculty. Instead, gender harassment features more prominently in the experiences of STEM women faculty, with gender harassment associated with lower self-rated physical health and higher turnover intentions among women. Taken together, our findings extend the existing literature by documenting that outcomes for STEM men faculty are more strongly shaped by the institutional climate surrounding sexual harassment, whereas women’s outcomes are more closely linked to witnessing actual forms of gender harassment.

Authors

• Krista Lynn Minnotte, University of North Dakota

• Daphne Pedersen, University of North Dakota