You are invited to join the weekly Nuremberg Research Seminar in Economics on 7 January 2026, from 13.15 to 14.45 pm. The seminar will be held in room LG 0.423. Jonas Jessen (WZB Berlin) will be talking about “Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: The Role of Managers and Firm Policies “.
More information can be found here:
This paper investigates the prevalence and perceived consequences of workplace sexual harassment in Germany, focusing on the role of firm-level policies and managerial characteristics. Using two newly collected matched employer–employee survey modules linked to administrative records, we document both the incidence of harassment and workers’ perceived risk from employee and firm perspectives. We embed a discrete choice experiment to estimate workers’ willingness to forgo earnings in order to avoid harassment-exposed workplaces and to examine the mitigating roles of firm policies and manager gender. Approximately 13% of establishments report recent harassment cases, while 26% of women and 14% of men report lifetime workplace experiences. Gender gaps in reported exposure are not explained by differences in definitions of harassment. Our experimental evidence indicates that workers—particularly women—are willing to forgo substantial earnings to avoid employers with a history of harassment. Female managers and formal harassment policies partially offset these negative valuations. However, only 60% of firms report having formal complaint procedures, and preventive training remains rare. Harassment policies do not systematically reduce perceived risk, but they are positively associated with a stronger discussion culture and higher reporting rates. Trust in employer responses is uneven: women, particularly those with prior exposure to harassment, express significantly lower confidence in managerial action.