The gender pay gap in nonprofit executive compensation in South Florida

• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Author: Todd L'Herrou,Adriene Tynes
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21390
• Date: 01 March 2020

RESEARCH NOTE

The gender pay gap in nonprofit executive

compensation in South Florida

Todd L'Herrou | Adriene Tynes

Nonprofits First, West Palm Beach, Florida

Correspondence

Todd L'Herrou, Nonprofits First, 1818

S. Australian Ave, #450, West Palm Beach,

FL 33409.

Email: tlherrou@nonprofitsfirst.org

Abstract

In general, systemic imbalance in pay between men and

women is well established, but the literature on pay imbal-

ance is mixed for nonprofit executives. Difference in orga-

nizational size could be a relevant factor in explaining pay

imbalance, as previous research suggests average female

nonprofit executives lead smaller organizations. The pre-

sent study examines the role of governance accreditation

on the gender gap in chief executive pay, using a 2 × 2

analysis of covariance to control for organizational size

(as measured by annual revenue) when comparing samples

of accredited and nonaccredited organizations in South

Florida. We found a wage gap for gender, with female

executives averaging 12% less compensation than male

executives, after controlling for organizational size. No

significant effect was found for accreditation; although the

only significant difference between genders was in the

nonaccredited sample, the findings hint that any trend

towards pay equity would be due to a pattern of the male

executives in the accredited sample being paid less than

their counterparts in nonaccredited organizations.

KEYWORDS

compensation, executive, gender

In the United States, as across the world, there is considerable (although improving) history of

women receiving lower pay than men for similar or identical work (the “wage gap”)

(U.S. Department of Labor, 2017). For Florida, the most recent data available (2016 data) on the

extent of the wage gap at the time of this writing finds that the ratio of women's median salaries to

men's is 87.5% (Institute for Women's Policy Research, 2018). While some have attempted to explain

Received: 1 August 2018 Revised: 1 August 2019 Accepted: 8 August 2019

DOI: 10.1002/nml.21390

Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 2020;30:525–533. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nml © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 525