Sexual harassment

This release presents detailed sexual harassment statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) 2021-22 Personal Safety Survey (PSS).

The survey collected information from persons aged 18 years and over about the nature and extent of their experiences of violence.

Summary statistics on all topics collected in the PSS can be found in Personal Safety, Australia.

For lifetime sexual harassment prevalence data from 2016, refer to the ‘Experience of sexual harassment’ section of the 2016 Personal Safety, Australia publication.

The 2021-22 PSS was conducted between March 2021 and May 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout this time, government policies were in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19, including stay-at-home orders, border control measures, limits on gatherings, and social distancing rules. The survey results should be understood and interpreted within the broader context of the wide-ranging changes to everyday life during the pandemic.

In the written commentary, where a prevalence rate is described as higher or lower than a comparative rate, or one group is described as more or less likely to have experienced sexual harassment than another group, the difference has been found to be statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.

Figures marked with an asterisk (*) have a relative standard error of between 25% and 50% and should be used with caution.

While the PSS collects the same information from both men and women, detailed socio-demographic and characteristic data for men who experienced sexual harassment are not sufficiently statistically reliable to include in the commentary. Summary statistics for men are available in the data downloads.

For more information about statistical significance, relative standard error, and men’s data quality, refer to the Personal Safety, Australia Methodology.

In the PSS, sexual harassment is considered to have occurred when a person has experienced or been subjected to one or more selected behaviours which they found improper or unwanted, which made them feel uncomfortable, or were offensive due to their sexual nature. The PSS collects information about selected types of sexual harassment behaviours, including:

• Indecent phone call
• Indecent text, email or post
• Indecent exposure
• Inappropriate comments about body or sex life
• Unwanted touching, grabbing, kissing, or fondling
• Distributing or posting pictures or videos of the person, which were sexual in nature, without their consent
• Exposure to pictures, videos or materials, which were sexual in nature, that the person did not wish to see

For more definitions of the terms used throughout the commentary, refer to the Glossary.

In 2021-22, an estimated 1.7 million people (8.7%) experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months, including:

• 13% of women (1.3 million)
• 4.5% of men (426,800) 

For women, the perpetrator of sexual harassment was most often a male:

• 1.2 million women (12%) experienced sexual harassment by a male
• 110,900 women (1.1%) experienced sexual harassment by a female

Men were about as likely to experience sexual harassment by a male as by a female:

• 310,800 men (3.3%) experienced sexual harassment by a male
• 250,400 men (2.6%) experienced sexual harassment by a female

Since the survey first collected sexual harassment data in 2012, the 12-month prevalence rate has decreased for both women and men:

• for women, the rate decreased from 15% in 2012 to 13% in 2021-22
• for men, the rate decreased from 6.6% in 2012 to 4.5% in 2021-22

Since the survey was last conducted in 2016, the 12-month prevalence rate of sexual harassment for women decreased from 17% in 2016 to 13% in 2021-22. This was driven by a decrease in the rate of sexual harassment by both a male (from 16% to 12%) and by a female (from 4.1% to 1.1%).

For men, the 12-month prevalence rate of sexual harassment decreased from 9.3% in 2016 to 4.5% in 2021-22. This was driven by a decrease in the rate of sexual harassment by a female (from 6.7% to 2.6%).

Between 2016 and 2021-22, the proportion of women who experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months decreased across all the sexual harassment behaviours, except for having pictures or videos of themselves, which were sexual in nature, distributed or posted without their consent, where there was no statistically significant change.

Between 2016 and 2021-22, the proportion of women who experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months decreased across all age groups, except for the 18-to-24-year age group, where there was no statistically significant change.

The prevalence of sexual harassment decreased with age, with women aged 18 to 24 years the most likely to have experienced sexual harassment (35%), and women aged 65 years and over the least likely (3.2%).

Women who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or who used a different term such as asexual, pansexual or queer were more likely to have experienced sexual harassment (37%) than women who identified as heterosexual (11%).

For both groups, the majority of those who experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months experienced it by a male perpetrator.

Women who identified as bisexual were more likely to have experienced sexual harassment (45%) than women who identified as gay or lesbian (23%).

Women with disability were more likely to have experienced sexual harassment (14%) than women without disability (12%).

Unemployed women were more likely to have experienced sexual harassment (29%) than employed women (15%) and women not in the labour force (7.4%).

Women who were currently studying were more likely to have experienced sexual harassment (26%) than women who were not studying (11%).

Women born in Australia were more likely to have experienced sexual harassment (14%) than women born overseas (8.4%).

Women living in a capital city were more likely to have experienced sexual harassment (14%) than women living outside of a capital city (11%).

The rate of sexual harassment was higher for women living in households that:

• experienced one or more cash flow problems in the last 12 months (27%) compared with households that did not experience cash flow problems (11%)
• were unable to raise $2,000 within a week for something important (19%) compared with households that could raise the money (12%)

Of the 1.3 million women who experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months:

• 63% (792,900) received inappropriate comments about their body or sex life
• 40% (505,100) received an indecent text, email, or post
• 32% (401,700) experienced unwanted touching, grabbing, kissing, or fondling
• 18% (220,100) were exposed to pictures or videos, which were sexual in nature, that they did not wish to see
• 14% (170,300) received an indecent phone call
• 10% (126,900) experienced indecent exposure
• 4.1% (51,700) had pictures or videos of themselves, which were sexual in nature, distributed or posted without their consent

Of the 1.3 million women who experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months, nearly half (45%) experienced more than one harassment behaviour, including:

• 23% (293,000) who experienced two behaviours
• 12% (145,100) who experienced three behaviours
• 9.5% (119,300) who experienced four or more behaviours

Women who experienced sexual harassment were more likely to experience it by a male than by a female:

• 97% (1.2 million) experienced sexual harassment by a male
• 8.9% (110,900) experienced sexual harassment by a female

Of women who experienced sexual harassment, more experienced it by a known person (63%) than by a stranger (55%), including the following known perpetrator types:

• 27% (332,400) by a work/professional relationship
• 20% (244,700) by an acquaintance or neighbour
• 15% (193,000) by an intimate partner
• 14% (170,900) by a friend or housemate

Of women who experienced sexual harassment, more experienced it face-to-face (70%) than electronically (57%), including at the following locations:

• 29% (358,200) at a place of entertainment or recreation
• 26% (320,200) at work
• 21% (261,700) at a residential location
• 19% (231,200) outside