Workplace
The High Financial Price Paid by Victims of Sexual Harassment
A new study tries to quantify the cost in lost earnings—and lost opportunity.
Victims of sexual harassment often face retaliation that can damage their careers, but the financial cost they shoulder has been difficult to quantify.
Photographer: Jason Alden/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
While it’s long been clear that victims of sexual harassment often face retaliation that can damage their careers, the financial cost they shoulder has been difficult to quantify.
To put a number on it, a study published Wednesday by Time’s Up and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), “Paying Today and Tomorrow,” sought to nail down what people who had been harassed ended up paying. Victims interviewed faced expenses anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.