This article describes how the largest labor market survey in the United Kingdom has been used to compare employment in the third sector with other sectors. This is based on employees’owninternal definition of their employers’sector, an approach that it is argued can usefully supplement the dominant external approach. The dimensions along which the (self-defined) third sector emerges as distinctive include its rather small absolute size, its relatively high concentration of part-time and temporary staff, the greater proportion of its workers who work unpaid overtime, the relatively high proportion of employees who are women, the tendency for its respondents to have high levels of educational qualifications, and its distinctive composition. At least some of these features seem to be shared with the third sector in other developed countries, although it is very difficult to be confident in these comparisons for the reasons discussed in the article.
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