Here's what teachers earn around the world
If you're a teacher in Luxembourg, you're in luck.
Using data from a recent OECD report, the World Economic Forum put together a chart showing in which ten countries teachers with 10 years' experience who work in public institutions at the lower secondary level earn the most.
Luxembourg was number one on the list. There, teachers with the aforementioned qualifications can earn a salary of $99,900 - or just shy of six figures.
That salary trumps that of the second place country, Germany, where teachers earn around $65,843. Meanwhile, the United States came in 6th place at $53,758.
Notably, 7 out of the 10 countries on the list are located in Europe. The other three are the US, Australia, and Canada.
Interestingly, a working paper by Markus Nagler, Marc Piopiunik, and Martin R. West found that the quality of teachers goes up during recessions in the United States.
The key factor here is that during recessions a teacher salary is more attractive relative to the lower (expected) earnings in other professions. So, therefore, people who might not otherwise have gone into teaching end up becoming teachers because they expect to earn more in that job than in others.
Given those findings, the authors noted that: "Intrinsic motivation seems to be of second-order importance relative to the effects of increasing teacher pay on selection when hiring more effective teachers."
And that suggests if teachers were paid more relative to other professions, perhaps the overall quality of teachers would be improved as more capable people would choose to teach.