A Comparison of Wage Inequality in For-profit, Non-Profit and Local Government Organizations: Nursing Homes in the Midwestern US

This essay is devoted to investigate the ownership-related wage differentials using a sample of US nursing homes, distinguishing between nonprofit, forprofit and local government organizations. It focuses on within-organization across-occupation wage dispersion, controlling for important factors that may affect this variable. The results do not support widespread opinions about wage dispersion across the three ownership types. Neither the intrinsic motivation perspective’s prediction of less inequality among employees in nonprofit and government sectors, nor the agency theory prediction that higher level employees will use their influence to increase their own well-being without increasing the well-being of others, are supported.