Are the Wages Paid by Non-Profits Sensitive to Volunteering? Evidence From France

Abstract

Volunteers and paid staff frequently work alongside each other in nonprofit organizations. Nevertheless, the possible impact of volunteering on the wages of the paid staff has hardly ever been investigated due to the scarcity of data suited to such research. Based on the matching of two French databases and using several indicators relating to volunteering, this article examines the relationship between volunteering and wages by carrying out investigations that differentiate between employees depending on their position in the socio-occupational hierarchy and the field of activity of their organizations. The results confirm the value of such an approach based on disaggregated data by revealing the diversity of situations. This diversity ranges from some cases where no relationship is observed between volunteering and wages to others where there is a negative relationship and even in a few cases, a positive one.