Gender differences in office occupant perception of indoor environmental quality (IEQ)

doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2013.08.022

Building and Environment

Volume 70, December 2013, Pages 245-256

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2013.08.022 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Womens' IEQ satisfaction was consistently lower than men.
•
Women are significantly more likely to express dissatisfaction with IEQ factors.
•
Overall workspace satisfaction showed no difference between the two sexes.

Abstract

This paper investigates the gender differences in the occupants' perception on various aspects of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) by two lines of inquiry; Firstly, a comprehensive literature survey spanning the research areas of indoor air quality (IAQ), sick building syndrome (SBS), thermal comfort, lighting, and acoustics was conducted. Secondly, statistical analyses were performed on a large, predominantly North American Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) database (N = 38,257). Statistical analyses indicated that female occupants' satisfaction levels were consistently lower than male occupants for all fifteen IEQ factors (including thermal comfort, air quality, lighting, acoustics, office layout & furnishings, and cleanliness & maintenance) addressed in POE questionnaire, and the differences were statistically significant. Logistic regression analysis identified a significant association between female gender and dissatisfaction with individual IEQ factors. Those gender differences quantified by odds ratios (OR) were most pronounced for dissatisfaction with thermal environment, IAQ, and workspace cleanliness. The analyses produced consistent results, even after potential confounding factors such as age and work characteristics were controlled.

Introduction

For several decades, there has been research interest in how the conditions of indoor environment affect the office workers' performance, health, or satisfaction [e.g. Refs. [1], [2], [3]]. Providing optimal, or at least comfortable environment that can satisfy a majority of occupants is deemed to be important, and has been the primary goal of conventional facilities management practice, particularly in the context of commercial office environments in which individual occupant's control over their surrounding environments is usually restricted. However, indoor environments deemed satisfactory by a certain occupant group may not be satisfactory to another. Building occupants often react in noticeably different ways under the same indoor environment, leading to a presumption that various personal or psychosocial factors beyond environmental parameters influence occupants' perception of the quality of indoor environment [e.g. Refs. [4], [5], [6]].

Conducting an occupant survey is the most prevalent method of data collection that can be found in post-occupancy evaluation (POE) researches across diverse disciplines, including psychology, the social, health, and building sciences [e.g. Refs. [7], [8], [9], [10]]. Common to all of them though is the goal of understanding causal relationships between indoor environment and the behaviour, perception and comfort of building occupants. Those surveys often (perhaps in most cases) collect the respondents' gender information. However, not all of them report the result based on the gender differences. In fact, despite a very large number of indoor environment surveys, only a few specifically address the gender effect. Some debates on the gender difference can be found in Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) or thermal comfort studies [e.g. Refs. [11], [12], [13], [14]] but the results are scattered and there is still ambiguity. A recent review paper focused specifically on gender differences in the thermal comfort literature noted that females were, on average, 74% more likely to express thermal dissatisfaction than males [15], prompting this wider enquiry into gender differences across all IEQ domains.

The primary objective of this paper is to investigate gender differences in the occupants' perception of all IEQ issues. Firstly, a literature survey is conducted to synthesise information about gender effects reported in the previous research literature on different IEQ dimensions, including IAQ (indoor air quality)/SBS, thermal comfort, acoustics, and lighting. Secondly, a detailed statistical analysis is conducted on a large occupant survey database (POE) from the Center for the Built Environment (CBE) at the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on how female and male occupants respond to the various aspects of office indoor environments. Then our discussion section is developed by comparing findings from the literature survey and the statistical analysis on the POE database.

Section snippets

Literature survey

Table 1 summarises the literature that investigated gender differences within the context of IEQ. Studies that didn't clearly address the statistical significance of gender differences were not included in this survey. A total of 35 published research articles were included in Table 1 and a majority of those were field studies based on questionnaire survey with or without simultaneous instrumental measurements of IEQ parameters, but some were based on the controlled environmental chamber

Occupant survey database

Although the influence of the office environment on occupants has attracted inter-disciplinary research attention over recent decades, the literature remains incoherent and ambiguous. This is possibly the result of a failure on the part of researchers to agree on common or standardised POE tools to measure occupant ratings of the built environment [47], [48]. Therefore the empirical analysis in the present paper is based on an “industry standard” post-occupancy evaluation (POE) database from

Mean satisfaction level

Fig. 1 illustrates the mean satisfaction ratings for overall workspace and the 15 IEQ factors by gender. Thirteen of the 15 IEQ factors received positive mean satisfaction scores but ‘temperature’ received negative mean votes by the female group and ‘sound privacy’ received negative mean votes by both males and females. In general, thermal/air (‘temperature’ and ‘air quality’) and acoustical condition (‘noise’ and ‘sound privacy’) were evaluated poorly compared to the rest of IEQ factors.

Discussion

The analyses conducted on CBE's POE database demonstrated that satisfaction with various IEQ factors differed between the sexes. Significant gender differences were observed for mean satisfaction level with all IEQ factors (Table 4), with females being consistently less satisfied. This study also focused on the occupants' expressions of clear dissatisfaction, as an indicative measure of potential IEQ complaints. Again the percentage of dissatisfaction was consistently higher in the female group

Conclusion

The comprehensive literature survey in Table 1 highlighted general consensus that gender differences exist, particularly in SBS symptomology and thermal discomfort. Our analyses based on 38,257 office occupant samples further reinforce these earlier findings. However, the present study generalises the gender effect beyond indoor air quality and thermal conditions, to the remaining IEQ factors. The present analysis predicts that female office workers are significantly more likely to complain

Acknowledgement

The authors thank Monika Frontczak from ICIEE at the Technical University of Denmark for her invaluable efforts in organising and formatting the CBE database for our statistical analyses.

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View full text

Gender differences in office occupant perception of indoor environmental quality (IEQ)

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Literature survey

Occupant survey database

Mean satisfaction level

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgement

Build Environ

Soc Sci Med

Build Environ

Soc Sci Med

J Environ Psychol

Build Environ

Appl Ergon

Build Environ

J Therm Biol

Energy Build

Build Environ

Energy Build

Energy Build

Physiol Behav

Environ Int

J Environ Psychol

Build Environ

J Environ Psychol

Environ Res

Environ Res

The effects of outdoor air supply rate in an office on perceived air quality, sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms and productivity

Indoor Air

Self-assessed productivity and the office environment: monthly surveys in five European countries

ASHRAE Trans

Productivity in buildings: the ‘killer’ variables

Build Res Inf

Psychosocial dimensions of solving an indoor air problem

Indoor Air

Modeling of subjective responses to indoor air quality and thermal conditions in office buildings

HVAC R Res

Office noise and employee concentration: identifying causes of disruption and potential improvements

Ergonomics

Indoor climate, psychosocial work environment and symptoms in open-plan offices

Indoor Air

Field study of occupant comfort and office thermal environments in a hot, arid climate

ASHRAE Trans

Field study of occupant comfort and office thermal environments in a cold climate

ASHRAE Trans

Health and indoor climate complaints of 7043 office workers in 61 buildings in the Netherlands

Indoor Air

Thermal comfort and gender: a literature review

Indoor Air