More than one in ten Israeli women experienced sexual harassment in the workplace in 2011, Israeli daily Haaretz reported Monday.

About 165,000 women, representing 11.4 per cent of the country's female workforce, told researchers that they had been subjected to some level of abuse last year.

The study was conducted by the Israeli Industry, Trade and Labour Ministry's research and economics department. Its findings are based on an Internet survey of some 1,000 women and a phone survey of more than 2,000 women.

Thirty-five per cent of women who suffered harassment noted that their direct superiors had been the perpetrators of the abuse, the study showed.

According to the report's findings, 77 per cent of those who suffered harassment preferred to stay in their jobs despite the abuse, while 5 per cent reported taking time off work.

"In instances where the harassed women need to work for financial reasons, or simply like their work, they hesitate to confront the harasser," Haaretz quoted social researchers Ronit Harris and Osnat Fichtelberg-Barmatz as saying.

Women are estimated to represent some 47 per cent of the Israeli workforce.