PAY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TEACHERS AND OTHER OCCUPATIONS:
SOME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM BANGLADESH

M. Niaz ASADULLAH (Oxford University)

This paper addresses a popular debate on teacher pay in a developing country context i.e. whether teachers are under-paid or over-paid. Using a very recent national level household survey data from Bangladesh, we find that teachers are significantly under-paid in comparison to individuals who possess similar human capital and other characteristics. This result is robust to sample selection problem (arising due to non-random selection in the labour market) and, changes in the sample and holds true even after adjusting for shorter work hours in teaching. The wage gaps are further decomposed following the conventional Oaxaca Ransom (1994) approach.