By Susanne Clement Justesen, AAU Communication and Public Affairs. Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication and Public Affairs

PhD students, and women in particular, experience sexism in the workplace to a large extent. This is according to a survey of 15,040 PhD students at Denmark's eight universities from VIVE - The Danish Centre for Social Science Research.

Among the respondents, 37% of female PhD students indicate that they have experienced gender-related degrading behaviours; 32% have experienced sexualized behaviours; and 23% have experienced unwanted sexual contact and coercion. In comparison, the proportion is 21%, 13% and 6% for male PhD students.

In addition, the study shows that sexism can have consequences for retention and mental health. For example, women who begin their PhD programme in a sexist work environment are less likely to stay at the university after graduation. In addition, they indicate a higher use of psychotropic drugs and are on sick leave for a longer period of time at the end of their PhD studies or in the immediate aftermath.

A problem that must be solved

The report deals with PhD students who began their programme in 2010-2018. Since then, AAU has launched several initiatives. For example, the university has a procedure for how staff members should report their experiences and how managers should address offensive and abusive behaviour. AAU has changed the staff well-being survey to better identify the circumstances in such cases and offers free psychological counselling to staff who have experienced unacceptable behaviour.

But this is far from enough, says Rector Per Michael Johansen and elaborates:

"We must not only be able to react to offensive and abusive behaviour; we must also be able to prevent it. We will now examine the findings in detail, consider how and where we can best involve the organization and introduce new initiatives to curb sexism in our workplace", says Rector Per Michael Johansen and adds:

"Those in power have a responsibility. Management has a fundamental task in changing the culture so that gender does not affect well-being or career opportunities. Sexism and sexually offensive or abusive behaviour have no place at AAU."

AAU compared to other universities

Incidents of sexism are experienced at all universities. At AAU, 36%, 28% and 19% of women have experienced gender-related degrading behaviour, sexualized behaviour and unwanted physical contract and coercion, respectively. See graphs from the report ”Sexisme og karriereforløb på danske universiteter” (Sexism and career paths at Danish universities).

"It is an important report that documents a serious problem - also with us. The results underscore that we need to do more to create a safe working environment," says the rector.

Data and methodology

Among other sources, data was collected via questionnaires sent out to nine year groups of PhD students in order to measure changes over time. No significant changes were recorded over the period, although the #MeToo movement could be expected to have had a positive impact on the working environment. Additionally, data was collected via registry-based data on e.g. career paths, focus group interviews, diaries with reflection notes as well as individual interviews and re-interviews.

Read more about the study (in Danish) here

Read more about the staff well-being barometer here