What Pay Gap between Voluntary Associations and the Rest of the Private Sector? A Socio-Historical and Statistical Analysis According to Industries[Des salariés associatifs moins bien payés ? : Une analyse sociohistorique et statistique par domaine d’activité]

Are nonprofit employees paid less than their counterparts in the rest of the private sector? Comparative economic research from abroad has shown that the answer to this question differs according to industries. This article intends to explain such differences that have received little attention in France. To this end, it adopts a socio-historical approach to the wage relationship in voluntary associations. It studies the effect of volunteering on the norms that structure this relationship. It takes into account the differences in the history of the professionalization of voluntary associations and the unequal development of collective agreements across industries. Based on an exploitation of the annual declaration of social data (in French, Déclarations annuelles des données sociales [DADS]), the article shows that in activities such as sport or the live performing arts, whose professionalization is recent and where volunteering plays an important role, wages in associations are lower than those in the rest of the private sector. It is not the case in the health industry or in the social service one.