Sexual Harassment at the Workplace

Last registered on January 27, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Sexual Harassment at the Workplace
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015274
Initial registration date
January 27, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
January 27, 2025, 10:27 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Germany
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Jonas Jessen
Affiliation
WZB Berlin Social Science Center
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Valentina Goetz
PI Affiliation
University of Bonn and IZA
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Ingo E. Isphording
PI Affiliation
IZA
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Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2024-11-29
End date
2025-02-07
Keywords
Gender, Labor
Additional Keywords
sexual harassment, willingness to pay, amenities
JEL code(s)
J28, J71, M54, M12
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We describe a survey on sexual harassment at German workplaces which also includes a discrete choice experiment. In the discrete choice experiment we ask respondents to choose between fictitious jobs varying randomly in their attributes including , which is a similar setup to Folke and Rickne (2022), Maestas et al. (2023) or Nagler et al. (2023). The experiment allows us to estimate the willingness to pay for several job characteristics including some which are linked to sexual harassment at the workplace. In the survey we also elicit whether respondents have experienced sexual harassment in their work environment, how they believe their firms would deal with cases of sexual harassment and which actions they perceive to be sexual harassment.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Goetz, Valentina, Ingo E. Isphording and Jonas Jessen. 2025. "Sexual Harassment at the Workplace." AEA RCT Registry. January 27. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15274-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We describe a survey on sexual harassment at German workplaces which also includes a discrete choice experiment. In the discrete choice experiment we ask respondents to choose between fictitious jobs varying randomly in their attributes, which is a similar setup to Folke and Rickne (2022), Maestas et al. (2022) and Nagler et al. (2022).. The experiment allows us to estimate the willingness to pay for several job characteristics including some which are linked to sexual harassment at the workplace. In the survey we also elicit whether respondents have experienced sexual harassment in their work environment, how they believe their firms would deal with cases of sexual harassment and which actions they perceive to be sexual harassment.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2024-11-29
Intervention End Date
2025-02-07

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Willingess to pay (WTP) to avoid workplaces with sexual harassment. This is estimated through the discrete choice experiment where participants are presented with six pairs of job vacancies where some of the job characteristics concern the working environment where cases of sexual harassment have occured.

For the willingness to pay measures we will then conduct extensive heterogeneity analysis, as described in more detail in the attached pre-analysis plan. The key heterogeneities we will study are gender fo the respondent, age, whether cases of sexual harassment have occured in the past at their workplaces, share of female workers at their current firm and occupation.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
In the discrete choice experiment each respondent will be presented with 6 pairs of randomly chosen hypothetical job vacancies. Every vacancy contains the five attributes: 1. Monthly earnings, 2. Vacation days per year, 3. Work environment, 4. Manager characteristics, 5. Additional offers at the workplace.

In each of the 6 cases, respondents are asked to indicate which of these job offers they prefer. Two comparison groups are excluded because one job would be too strictly dominating the other one: 1. 10% higher earnings and 30 vacation days vs. same earnings and 25 vacation days and 2. 10% higher earnings and 30 vacation days vs. 5% higher earnings and 25 vacation days. Three of the five descriptions of the work environment contain environments where sexual harassment has occurred in the past.

The variation in earnings lets us estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) for the different job attributes such that we can express their valuation in standard economic terms.

We also ask respondents the following questions without experimental variation (full details to be found in the pre-analysis plan):
- Whether cases of sexual harassment have occured at their workplace in the past
- How cases of sexual harassment would be handled at their current firm
- Which actions they perceive to be sexual harassment
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomisation of the features of the job vacancies are done by a computer.
Randomization Unit
ndividual choice between two hypothetical jobs
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
No clusters.
Sample size: planned number of observations
2,000-4,000
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
No treatment arms in our experiments. Each job characteristics is chosen with the same probability.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Pre_analysis_plan_SH.pdf

MD5: 09566d5802b7c1b5e30d681f3f83f58a

SHA1: 669321824ffdb647859fba1f56328b18dd0cd5bd

Uploaded At: January 27, 2025

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials