Workplace bullying: The surprising differences between men & women

Men and women deal with workplace bullying in very different ways, according to new research.

Although men and women are almost at an equal risk of being bullied, the way in which they react to it dramatically differs. Aarhus BSS and the University of Copenhagen found that seven per cent of respondents reported that they are being subjected to bullying - and almost half (43%) were male.

However, the research shows that bullying in the workplace doubles women’s sickness absence, leads them to an increased use of antidepressants and affects their health negatively for a long period of time.

Whereas men are twice as likely to leave the labour market for a period of time after they have been subjected to bullying.

Assistant Professor Tine Mundbjerg Eriksen, from the Department of Economics and Business Economics at Aarhus BSS, says: “The million-dollar question is why men primarily react by leaving the workplace, while women react to bullying by taking prolonged sick leaves. If anything, this illustrates that men and women handle bullying differently.”

Furthermore, bullying does not seem to increase men’s sickness absence. In fact, men who are bullied are more likely than women to go to work even though they are actually sick.

Eriksen continues: “At the same time, it appears that bullying affects men’s salary level negatively, which indicates that the bullying hampers their opportunities for pay increases and promotions. One way of bullying is that your colleagues or your boss impede your ability to do your job properly, make changes to your work or hand the fun and important tasks to others.”

This links to a study revealed earlier this year where it was found that workplace bullying has links to the animal kingdom.

However, “there are still many things we don’t know exactly,” says Eriksen.

“For example, if the bullying follows the person or the workplace or both. But it’s an expensive problem for society and for the individual, so we’d like to dig deeper.”