Gender Structure And Earning Of Primary Teacher Workforce In China

The persistent concern about the long-term trends of fewer male teachers has been often attracted in international education reports such as(OECD,2005;UNESCO,2011).In particular,a shortage of men in the primary teaching workforce has also been raised in many countries such as United Kingdom,Germany,and Australia to study the relationship between gender and the teaching profession(Davis & Hay,2018;Mc Dowell & Klattenberg,2019).Many studies on the lack of men and the consequences of this phenomenon in elementary education have prompted a lot of countries to have a longstanding aim to recruit more male primary school teachers.In this study,I track the declining trend of the male to female teacher ratio in primary schools of China over the past three decades and study how they happened from the economic perspectives.Using a rigorous four-part analysis,I examine and contextualize how the labor market conditions such as earnings affect the male's participation in the primary teaching workforce in China.Firstly,in Part 1,employing the linear regression model for the male to female primary school teacher ratio with the year as the only independent variable by region,I illustrate that percentages of this ratio decrease annually by 2.9% across the country.This annual decreasing rate varies slightly from region to region,with the highest value being3.7% in the western region and the lowest value being 2.5% in the eastern region.Secondly,in Part 2,having established the decline of the male to female primary school teacher ratio in China over the past three decades,I estimate a Mincer earnings function to examine gaps in mean earning levels between primary-teaching and non-primary-teaching sectors grouped by gender.I find that by using log points,primary school teachers' mean earning is 21.4%,13.5%,35.1%,and 18.6% lower than male workers in the non-primary-teaching sector in2012,2013,2015,and 2017,while they are annually paid about 18.7% and 16.5% higher than the female non-primary-teaching-workers in 2010 and 2013,respectively.Thirdly,in Part 3,I estimate the probability of working as a primary school teacher by gender.According to this,every 10% increase in log earning difference between comparable primary school teachers and other workers,it is shown to be 1.23%-1.28% more and 2.17% less likely to be a primary teacher for males and females,respectively.The analyses for Part 2 and Part 3 are conducted at micro-levels,based on teacher occupational choice theory.Finally,Part 4 identifies the extent to which labor market conditions such as average annual earnings across sectors affect the male to female primary school teacher ratio in China.For one,for every 10% increase in annual average earnings of primary school teachers relative to the workers in the overall sector,this ratio is found to be 5.95% higher.More specifically,the10% higher the actual average annual income of primary school teachers,the 3.23% higher this ratio,whereas for every 10% increase in the actual average annual earnings of workers in the overall sector,this ratio decreases by 5.95%.This study will help many policymakers and researchers in China and other countries to understand the decline of male primary school teachers and the influence of labor market conditions such as earnings on the male to female ratio in the primary teaching workforce.