Do male teachers earn more than their female colleagues?

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I will speak for Michigan here:

Probably just slightly.

Teachers are paid based on education and years of service. As such, my female colleagues who have master’s degrees and who were hired in the same year I was make, to the penny, exactly what I make.

So, you might think the answer is no.

However, as is true in many professions, women’s wages lag (in part) because they are more likely to take time off to have children than men are. This loss of time results directly in a loss of seniority and a corresponding decrease in salary.

That said, the effect is almost certainly significantly smaller in education than it is in other fields.

1. Teaching has one of the most forgiving schedules of any full-time job. As a result, many teachers don’t take off a full year (or multiple years) to raise kids.
2. Most teacher contracts plateau after a certain number of years. So for women who take a year or more off, their salary is reduced for some time but then eventually catches up to their male counterparts who did not take time off.
3. Teachers can often supplement their wages by taking on extra responsibilities like coaching, sponsoring a club, or serving in leadership roles in the school. There does not seem to be, in my experience, the same degree of “glass ceiling” when it comes to women in leadership roles in education. On the contrary, the majority (though not by much) of leadership positions within my school district have, in my tenure as a teacher, been filled by women. I’ve worked for 5 female superintendents (2 men), 4 female principals (2 men), and more female assistant principals than male ones. The teaching staff is also roughly 2:1 female:male as well — that is likely one reason that women seem to be more common in leadership positions in education than in other fields: simple statistics would suggest it must be so, since leadership positions in education are nearly universally filled by former teachers.

So there you have it: male teachers in Michigan probably, on average, make very slightly more than female teachers due to the delay in reaching the top of the pay scale that women are preferentially more likely to suffer because of their greater likelihood of taking time off to raise a family.

But female educators (including administrators) probably, on average, make very slightly more than male educators due to their greater representation in higher-paid administrative roles.