New York, Oct 10 (IANS): Although men and women love to work in single sex offices, productivity goes up if they share space with the opposite gender, finds an interesting research.

The survey by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) revealed that the biggest threat facing women at the workplace is often other women rather than male colleagues.

To reach this conclusion, researchers interviewed nearly 23,000 women and more than 2,000 men.

"We all think that we want to be in this pluralistic society in a diverse setting.

"But when push comes to shove, when our co-workers do not think like we do, that can cause some friction," said study co-author Dr Sara Ellison, senior economics lecturer at MIT.

Workers liked the idea of diversity more than they liked actual diversity, she noticed.

"Women who had been bullied by a member of their own sex said they felt they may have been targeted because their senior colleague felt threatened by their abilities," researchers noted.

The study, reported by Daily Mail, showed that if single sex offices had been mixed sex, revenue would have gone up by about 41 percent.