Sexual harassment at work: YouGov-Firstpost survey indicates women in top pay bracket most likely to be abused

The issue of women's safety in the workplace has come to the fore following the outpouring of complaints against sexual harassment as part of the MeToo campaign. Women from across various professions have taken to social media to name and shame their abusers and it appears there's many more names yet to surface.

Representational image. Reuters

YouGov India, in consultation with Firstpost, recently conducted a pan-India survey of women — interviewing over 750 respondents — asking them a series of questions spanning the areas of sexual harassment in the work place, the pay gap and the work-life balance. The exercise was conducted between 26 September and 5 October and employed a 26-question-long survey that covered respondents across 100 Indian cities. Firstpost will serialise the findings as a 12-part series of infographics, starting with, given the prevailing climate, sexual harassment.

The third set of four infographics depicts how women of different salary brackets perceive sexual harassment and their own experiences. According to the findings of the city-wise survey, women whose monthly earnings in the highest pay bracket are more likely than those earning a lower salary to be sexually harassed in the workplace.

Further, while those in the lower and higher income groups are most likely to raise a complaint with their organisation's HR department, women in the middle-income group are most likely not to report the incident, but confront their abuser in person.