2022 Volume 15 Issue 2 Pages 71-83
In recent years, workplace harassment has been attracting attention in Japan and abroad as a factor behind workers’ mental health problems. This paper examines the impact of workplace harassment on workers’ mental health using panel data of employer-employee matching data for small and medium-sized firms in Hyogo Prefecture. In the analysis, we compare the impacts of workplace harassment on mental health with that of various stressors associated with mental health. We also examine the effects of workplace harassment on the intention to quit the firm and the actual separation. The results show the negative relationship between workplace harassment and workers’ mental health. The negative impact of harassment on mental health is of non-negligible magnitude, comparable to the negative effect of about 70 hours of unpaid overtime work per month on mental health. Furthermore, results show that workplace harassment increases workers’ intention to quit the firm. These results suggest that workplace harassment has a significant impact on workers’ mental health and has no small impact on a firms’ human resource management.
