Regional Diversity in Salaries: Teachers in Municipal Schools

Abstract

The problem of low pay for school teachers has a long history, but despite all legislative initiatives, this problem is still far from being solved. The aim of the work is to prove that the wage standards of teachers in 2013–2017 have not been met and an analysis of the its regional differentiation, taking into account the level of economic development of the region. The article describes the basic teacher pay indicators that are presented in open databases of the statistical authorities or calculated by the author: absolute teacher salary and its growth, teacher salary as compared to the regional salary and ratio of teacher salary to the consumer basket of a working age adult. It is shown that during the period under review the living standards of teachers has been decreasing, and the target indicator has not been reached. The level of economic development of the region has a significant impact on the state of teachers. In financial centers, industrially developed or extracting of mineral resources regions, the standard of living of teachers is on average higher, while in less developed agricultural regions it is lower. Geographically, there may be presented two axes: the richer North and the poorer South and the richer Ural and eastern regions and the poorer western regions. Teacher salary reform does not reach its goal, which does not allow ensuring the continuity of teachers generations and negatively affects to the economy of Russia. To increase the standard of living of teachers, it is necessary to increase government funding, since under the low standards of living of the population of Russia the efforts of schools alone are not sufficient to reach this aim.