Insee Première · May 2024 · n° 1995

Wages are higher in the centers of major functional areas

In France in 2021, a private sector employee earned an average of 2,524 euros net per month in full-time equivalent (FTE). Employees working in the major functional areas received the highest wages, especially when they worked in the center rather than in the communting zone. Outside the functional areas, the average wage was 2,044 euros net.

Territorial wage disparities partly reflected the profile of the employees who work there and the companies that employ them. But even with identical characteristics, differences remain. For example, compared to their counterparts in functionnal areas with 700,000 or more inhabitants, salaried managers and company directors in Paris area center earned around 35% more.

Between 2000 and 2021, jobs, including the best-paid ones, were increasingly concentrated in areas with 700,000 or more inhabitants (excluding Paris). The Paris area center, whose weight in total employment in metropolitan France declined (-1 point), concentrated both more very high wages (two-thirds of the 1% highest wages in 2021) and more low wages.