Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics - IEA

PART 1: SALARY RELATIVITIES
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A major issue associated with estimating earnings in different occupations, particularly
when making comparisons with teaching, is whether to use yearly earnings (salary)
or earnings per hour (wages). Because teachers in some countries work fewer than
40 hours per week (even including preparation time—see OECD, 2004a) and, in all
countries, work fewer than 12 months per year, their hourly earnings usually compare
more favorably than their salaries with hourly earnings in other professions. Many
economists consider hourly earnings a better measure of compensation because these
allow us to measure the cost of the trade-off between working an hour and engaging in
leisure activities. Economists also tend to argue that hourly wages are a better predictor
of whether an individual will choose one type of work over another. Teaching offers
the possibility of working fewer than 12 months and a somewhat shorter workday (in
the classroom), factors appreciated by women in most societies, given that they, even in
post-industrial economies, still have primary responsibility for child-rearing.
Nevertheless, for those who are concerned with absolute earnings, and particularly for
those who are in economies where it is difficult to get (part-year) vacation jobs, annual
earnings probably offer a better means of comparison between teacher earnings and
earnings in “competing” occupations. If those teaching do not want time off in the
summer, then the value of that time is close to zero. As such, hourly wages calculated
on the basis of the fewer annual hours worked by teachers overestimate teacher pay
relative to remuneration from full-year jobs. Also, as Allegretto et al. (2004) point out,
inconsistencies in measuring the number of hours that teachers and other professionals
work per week and how many weeks they work per year lead to inaccurate estimates of
wages per hour. Accordingly, where possible, we present both measures of earnings in
the case studies.
If the relative salary of teachers—and probably the time trend of relative teacher
salary—correlates positively with teacher quality, then what we would expect to find
is a situation in which the higher the relative teacher salary in a country, the higher the
mathematics performance of that country’s students. As mentioned, however, teacher
salaries may be relatively high mainly because income distribution is more equal in
the country; professional salaries are thus equal to one another no matter what the
profession.
We could also expect to find that student performance is higher in countries with
higher income per capita (better-educated parents) than in coutries with lower income
per capita and perhaps, as discussed earlier, in countries with more equal income
distribution for reasons related to how educational resources are distributed among
students of lower and higher SES (see Chiu & Khoo, 2005, in this regard). Student
performance on the TIMSS or PISA tests may also be higher in countries with a lower
proportion of students in Grades 8 to 10 because these students represent a more
selective group in the potential student population. Equations 1a and 1b describe the