Gender Wage Differentials and Intrinsic Motivations: An Empirical study on Nonprofits

Abstract

Conducting a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique and a modified Recentered Influence Function quantile regression using the Bangladesh Labour Force Survey 2016-17, the paper estimates the gender wage differential and the impact of intrinsic motivation in the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. The study finds that nonprofits pay a relatively higher wage to their employees, supporting the intrinsic motivation-productivity hypothesis. However, the results cannot conclusively state that nonprofits exhibit a lower gender wage gap in light of this hypothesis. On the other hand, the gender earnings gap for for-profits is primarily driven by differences in worker endowments. Male for-profit workers suffer from a substantive wage penalty compared to the men employed in nonprofits with similar quantified attributes. No such penalty is found for women. The author also finds evidence of a glass ceiling within the nonprofits and a sticky-floor within for-profits.