Why Is Workplace Sexual Harassment Underreported? The Value of Outside Options amid the Threat of Retaliation

Gordon Dahl and Matthew Knepper

American Economic Review, 2026, vol. 116, issue 3, 897-933

Abstract: Why is workplace sexual harassment chronically underreported? We hypothesize that employers coerce victims into silence through the threat of a retaliatory firing. To test this, we estimate how two external shocks that reduce workers' outside options—unemployment rate increases and sharp cuts to unemployment insurance benefits—affect the selectivity of sexual harassment charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. We find that both shocks increase selectivity, which implies an increase in underreporting. Bolstering these findings, anonymous Google searches for "sexual harassment in the workplace" (total prevalence) spike relative to charges filed (reported prevalence) during the Great Recession.

JEL-codes: J71 J78 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20221703 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E237890V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24719 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/materials/24720 (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Why Is Workplace Sexual Harassment Underreported? The Value of Outside Options Amid the Threat of Retaliation (2021)
Working Paper: Why is Workplace Sexual Harassment Underreported? The Value of Outside Options Amid the Threat of Retaliation (2021)
Working Paper: Why Is Workplace Sexual Harassment Underreported? The Value of outside Options amid the Threat of Retaliation (2021)
Working Paper: Why is Workplace Sexual Harassment Underreported? The Value of Outside Options Amid the Threat of Retaliation (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:116:y:2026:i:3:p:897-933

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/aer.20221703

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().