A Persisting Gender Pay Gap in Teacher Compensation in the Public Schools

A new study by the Brookings Institution finds that although women make up roughly three–quarters of the teaching workforce, they make an estimated $5,000 less than men annually,

Overall, the study found gender wage gaps of about $4,000 favoring men when combining all sources of teachers’ income from schools. These gaps arise from differential compensation occurring both in base salary and in supplemental compensation teachers earn from schools. Gender wage gaps narrow when controlled for observable teacher and school characteristics, though a difference of roughly $2,200 remains, according to the report.

The data shows that men tend to be modestly more likely to participate in extra work and are much more likely to be paid for it, especially if their school principal is also a man. The evidence suggests these supplementary payments are more likely to reflect gender-based discrimination in comparison to base pay. For example, male coaches of athletic teams are paid more than their female counterparts with similar characteristics, earning $1,647 more.

The authors note that “school districts are often large bureaucratic entities that process many thousands of transactions annually, obscuring how individual payments contribute to inequalities. Requiring school districts to regularly collect and report high-level patterns in payroll data with a focus on gender equality, will bring transparency into payroll spending.”

The study concludes that “teachers are critical for many reasons, including their influence on students. They deserve to be adequately compensated for the work they do leading our nation’s classrooms, regardless of their gender.”

The full study, “Public Schools Heavily Rely on Women’s Labor: Why Do They Pay Female Teachers Less? may be found here.