Nearly half of women and three in 10 men in Canada have reported experiencing some form of harassment or sexual assault in the workplace, according to new data from Statistics Canada.
The figures are 47 per cent of women and 31 per cent of men, according to the survey conducted in 2020, an increase from a 2018 report by the agency on harassment in Canadian workplaces. At that time, 19 per cent of women and 13 per cent of men said they had been harassed at work.
The data for the 2020 report came from the Gender Results Framework, a tool first introduced by the federal government to track the progress of gender equality in Canada, and surveyed Canadians in 2020, with 12,138 people having responded. The survey included people 15 years of age and older in the workforce who live in Canada’s 10 provinces.
Among those surveyed, inappropriate sexualized behaviour in the workplace was the most prominent type of harassment experienced with 44 per cent of women and 29 per cent of men reporting such incidents. Another 20 per cent of women and nine per cent of men described discriminatory behaviours, with 13 per cent of women and three per cent of men reporting sexual assaults.
Workplace harassment is defined by Statistics Canada as an “objectionable or unwelcome conduct, comments or actions” by an individual at a location or event related to work. The actions can “reasonably be expected to offend, intimidate, humiliate or degrade the person experiencing them.”
Canadians aged 25 to 34 experienced the highest rate of workplace harassment or sexual abuse, with 60 per cent of women and 39 per cent of men reporting such experiences. Inappropriate sexualized behaviour reported was nearly double for women in this age group at 57 per cent, with 37 per cent for men.
Inappropriate sexualized behaviour is defined, according to StatCan, as inappropriate verbal and non-verbal communication, behaviour related to sexually explicit materials and unwanted physical contact or suggested sexual relations. Sexual assault was defined as sexual attacks, unwanted sexual touching and sexual activity to which the victim was unable to consent because they were manipulated, coerced, intoxicated or forced in another physical way.
Juliet Turpin of Lean in Canada, an advocacy group for women’s career advancement, told Global News in an interview that workplace harassment is likely underreported.
“It means that our environments don’t feel safe for women to be able to come forward in their organizations,” she said. “However, when there’s an anonymous survey, there’s more trust there, more anonymity and so then they are likely to come forward.”
She went on to say that workplaces need to have clear policies for reporting harassment and the potential consequences for the perpetrator. The reluctance to report harassment often due to fear of retaliation and concern about reputation can be reduced if such policies are in place, Turpin said.
The agency noted that when asked about the last 12 months, which would have been from 2019, 43 per cent of women and 25 per cent of men 15-24 years old reported experiencing workplace harassment, compared with 39 per cent and 23 per cent for women and men 25 to 34, respectively.
Individuals with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ2 community reported even higher rates of workplace harassment.
Fifty-eight per cent of women with a disability and 41 per cent of men reported such incidents, compared with 41 per cent of women and 28 per cent of men without a disability.
LGBTQ2 workers were two to four times more likely to be targets than their heterosexual colleagues, with 76 per cent of lesbian, gay or bisexual women and 53 per cent of men belonging to this group having ever experienced workplace harassment or sexual assault. Forty-six per cent of heterosexual women and 31 per cent of men reported these incidents.
Meanwhile, 35 per cent of racialized women and 20 per cent of racialized men reported ever experiencing workplace harassment. The agency found 51 per cent of non-racialized women and 35 per cent of men reporting these types of incidents.
Statistics Canada says people with disabilities, women and Indigenous people are consistently overrepresented among people who experience harassment, discrimination and violence in many areas of life, noting the results from the survey only focus on what happens in the workplace. It added that figures for racialized people may also be underestimated because of language barriers, as the survey was only conducted in English and French.
Overall, the Gender Results Framework found women were more likely to experience harassment in or outside the workplace, with it especially prevalent among those in health-related occupations, though inappropriate sexualized behaviours were often seen in male-dominated fields like trades, transport and equipment operators.
— with files from Global News’ Anne Gaviola