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Does it Pay to Work for Free? Negative Selection and the Wage Returns to Volunteer Experience

Listed author(s):
  • Guido Cozzi
  • Noemi Mantovan
  • Robert M. Sauer

This paper offers the first instrumental variables estimates of the wage returns to volunteer experience. The returns are substantial and differ considerably by gender. The results imply that the unequal valuation of volunteer experience by gender is more important in explaining the gender earnings gap than is the unequal valuation of part-time paid work experience. The results also indicate negative selection into unpaid work. In a simple model of optimal volunteering, negative selection implies that a lower cost of volunteering would produce both an expanded and higher-skilled pool of volunteers, and greater societal benefits from volunteer work.

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File URL: http://www.child.carloalberto.org/images/documenti/child32_2015.pdf
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Paper provided by Centre for Household, Income, Labour and Demographic Economics (CHILD) - CCA in its series CHILD Working Papers Series with number 32.

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Length: 36 pages
Date of creation: 2015
Handle: RePEc:cca:wchild:32
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