The purpose of this study was to compare the prevalence of workplace violence in European countries and Korea, and to determine the relationship between the prevalence of workplace violence and gender equality in each country. The level of gender equality was used as a proxy for the sensitivity to and awareness of workplace violence.

This study included 30,032 Europeans from the 6th European Working Conditions Survey and 39,675 Koreans from the 5th Korean Working Conditions Survey. Workplace violence included verbal abuse, unwanted sexual attention, threats, and humiliating behaviors over the past month and physical violence, sexual harassment, and bullying or harassment over the past year. The prevalence of workplace violence was standardized using the direct standardization method. Spearman’s rank correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between the prevalence of workplace violence and Gender Gap Index (GGI) adjusted for the Gini coefficient, unemployment rate, and share of temporary employment.

Countries with a high GGI showed a higher prevalence of workplace violence. Even after adjusting for the Gini coefficient, unemployment rate, and share of temporary employment, the positive correlations between the GGI and workplace violence over the past month (r=0.475, P=0.019) and workplace violence over the past year (r=0.692, P=0.001) were still significant.

This study is significant in that it addressed the issue of underreporting violence despite data limitations. Public intervention should be considered to increase sensitivity to workplace violence and prevent workplace violence.