Teaching is an overwhelmingly female profession in this country and by and large teachers spouse's (their husbands for the most part) make significantly more than they do. What does this mean? Hard to know. Teachers husbands could be looking at their joint financial situation and put aside their dreams of being teachers or writers or artists for a more boring but well compensated career to keep the couple financially afloat. Some teachers might not feel so attracted to starving artist types since they already face their own financial pressures. IMHO neither of the above scenarios make teachers gold-diggers or princesses or prostitutes.

Maybe the XXfactorites would like to do a little commenting on the realities facing women in teaching, not just writers?

Teachers are an unusual case, in that the job requires a college degree but doesn't pay as much as other jobs with similar qualifications. Part of the reason is that it's essentially a civil service job, with a government salary. On the other hand, teachers also have, like civil servants, excellent job security, good retirement benefits, and in many states, better-than-average health care coverage. A further benefit is that teachers get almost exactly the same schedule of holidays and vacations as their kids, a good compromise for a would-be stay-at-home mom who needs some income. In my district, teachers can, without difficulty, transfer their kids to the schools where they teach, without regard to which attendance zone they actually live in. It's also one of the few professions that can be entered at any age (say, when your kids are grown) and doesn't have substantial penalties for taking a few years off.

I think these couples are probably eminently practical, have a fairly traditional division of household roles, and may be focused on their kids' success (teaching is also the perfect job for helicopter parents).

Given all the advantages, I'm surprised that more stay-at-home moms don't go into teaching when their kids start school, but maybe the staying-at-home part is the attraction, not so much the mom part.

im1:

Teaching is an overwhelmingly female profession in this country and by and large teachers spouse's (their husbands for the most part) make significantly more than they do. What does this mean?

It means that we as a society do not respect education, and thus teaching enough.

im1:

. Teachers husbands could be looking at their joint financial situation and put aside their dreams of being teachers or writers or artists for a more boring but well compensated career to keep the couple financially afloat.

People generally end up with someone of a similar educational background. Since teaching is one of the lowest paid professions requiring a degree that a person with a college degree can have, it shouldn't be a surprise that the spouses of most teachers make more money then them. I don't think that means many of the spouses have sacrificed their own career desires (though I imagine some have).

im1:

Some teachers might not feel so attracted to starving artist types since they already face their own financial pressures.

I think that people need to evaluate what they really want in life. It would be difficult for two teachers to own their own house and have multiple children based on their salaries. So people have to weigh their priorities and decide what may need to sacrificed in order to best obtain higher priority items. Unfortunately, we can't have it all.

PhysicsGirl:

I think that people need to evaluate what they really want in life. It would be difficult for two teachers to own their own house and have multiple children based on their salaries. So people have to weigh their priorities and decide what may need to sacrificed in order to best obtain higher priority items. Unfortunately, we can't have it all.

exactly! So are teachers who prioritize finding a mate with whom they can afford to have children gold-diggers/princesses/lookin­g for sugar daddies? or are they just realists?

I think the disadvantage part is that to be a good teacher one needs to at the start of the teaching career to devote very long hours that aren't so easy to find once you have children. If you are a teacher first for a number of years, then have kids, I think it works more smoothly. I suspect many women are afraid to take the risk of the low paying career at time in their lives when they don't yet have the guarantee of the second higher-paying career because they haven't met or married the guy who will supply it yet because they are still in college. As the child of a life-long teacher I remember calling her at 5 and 6 PM when I was in middle and high school to see when she was coming home. Good teaching is not 7AM-3PM, it is 6:30 AM-5:30PM minimum. On the other hand, the summers at the pool with my mother were glorious.

Good point, although it may run the other way--perhaps people go into teaching because it affords them a schedule (in terms of total hours and predictability) consistent with a spouse's more demanding job.

Where's the actual data on teachers' husbands? Link?

What I remember from the Millionaire next door books is that teachers both male and female were actually better at using and saving their money. I don't remember any data on husbands underwriting the educational system.

That's a fair point. I know that is true in my local small district (the administration said it and the union conceded it in the contract dispute), but the toppost does not have a link.

The point of the Millionaire Next Door examples is that savings rate, rather than income, is the best predictor of asset accumulation. That doesn't suggest anything about whether teachers' spouses make more or less. My guess, based largely on many family members who work in education, is that the higher savings rate is due to a combination of a frugal culture and huge amounts of free time.

sorry about the lack of a link my dad is a social scientist and this is info he shared with me, when I tried to find it via google scholar elsevier wasn't giving access to any of their journals. I'll look again.

Thanks for looking for the link, im1. I'm always curious about the underlying data and I had not heard that teachers's spouses were the high earners. Although, I'm not sure that if I were a single teacher I would be happy to have that fact come up in contract negotiations.

Yes, Luxlawyer, Millionaire does stress the saving rate but doesn't that imply an excess of income over expenses? I assumed that that was based on households where the teacher's income was primary (although in looking through the book I can't find any underlying data there either so I may be wrong.)

Thanks, Bridget

teachers should come out here to Wyoming then. Low(er) cost of living (depending on where you live), low property taxes, and no income tax. A friend of my husband is two years out of college with his teaching degree and is making about $5k less than my husband and I. And we're both college grads (me with an advanced degree), professionally certified/licensed, and have 8 years job experience each. And I thought I was making a pretty decent wage (although quite a bit less than I might be able to get in other locals).