Which Country Pays its Professors the Most?

April 17, 2012 in Daily Bulletin

Scott Jaschik reports on a study done on purchasing-power adjusted salaries for professors around the world. Highlights include:

  • Canada offers the highest pay. The United States ranks fifth behind Italy, South Africa, and India.
  • Both India and China have tried desperately to attract the best professors but when it comes to professor salaries India easily beats China. Chinese universities pay high wages to ‘superstar’ expat professors, but pay low amounts to most other faculty. Indian universities do not engage in this practice, maintaining a relatively equal distribution of income among faculty.
  • The income disparity between entry-level and senior professors was lowest in Norway and highest in China.
  • The study did not control for things such as tax – something that Saudi Arabian professors do not have to pay. Nor did it take into account private universities.

To read more about the biases introduced by the things that the study didn’t account for, a full table that shows how each of the 28 countries analyzed fared, and how professors relate to 1 percenters across all countries click here.

Source: Inside Higher Ed

Via: Marginal Revolution