Female Overrepresentation in Public and Nonprofit Sector Jobs

Evidence From a French National Survey

Joseph Lanfranchi (1, 2) , Mathieu Narcy (3, 4, 2)

1 LEMMA - Laboratoire d'économie mathématique et de microéconomie appliquée
2 CEE - Centre d'études de l'emploi
3 TEPP - Travail, Emploi et Politiques Publiques
4 ERUDITE - Equipe de Recherche sur l’Utilisation des Données Individuelles en lien avec la Théorie Economique

Women are overrepresented in the public and nonprofit sectors. This article aims to bring to light the reasons behind this phenomenon. The originality of the employer-employee matched data used allows us to consider a large scope of potential reasons. Using a non-linear decomposition technique (Fairlie, 2005), we find that in addition to the well-known occupational segregation effect, the overrepresentation of women in the public and nonprofit sectors is associated with two common factors: greater offerings of family-friendly practices and higher attraction of men for certain fringe benefits that are more frequently provided by the for-profit sector. Sector-specific factors also exist. The higher wage advantage obtained by women compared with men working in the public sector rather than in the for-profit sector contributes to the feminization of the public sector. Similarly, the overrepresentation of women in the nonprofit sector is linked to greater access to part-time jobs and shorter workweeks there.

Mots clés: Public and nonprofit sectors; overrepresentation of women; occupational segregation; family-friendly policies

Domaines: Economies et finances

Joseph Lanfranchi, Mathieu Narcy. Female Overrepresentation in Public and Nonprofit Sector Jobs. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2013, 44 (1), pp.47-74. ⟨10.1177/0899764013502579⟩. ⟨halshs-01081038⟩