The article aims at evaluating the attractiveness of the teaching occupation at the secondary education level, as reflected by wage gaps between this category of teachers and other professional categories, based on PNAD data for 2006 and 2009. The methodologies employed in the paper include the traditional Oaxaca-Blinder´s decomposition, as well as a non-parametric alternative proposed by Ñopo (2008), which decomposes a given gap in four terms, emphasizing the gap within a common support of observable characteristics. Main results indicate that secondary school teachers have a favorable, albeit decreasing, pay gap when compared to civil servants and private sector workers. Furthermore, and more disturbing, compared with similarly-skilled professionals, the situation becomes detrimental to teachers and it shows a decline from 2006 to 2009. Results obtained using both methodologies indicate that to a great extent the latter gap cannot be attributed to differences in the distributions of individuals' characteristics, but rather to the unexplained fraction, which could translate a low social valuation of the teachers' occupation, or a pre- or post-occupational choice productivity gap. In any case, the low pay for teachers might be one of the factors explaining the lack of interest of young talented individuals for pursuing careers in education and teaching.
wage differentials; teachers' labor market; high school teachers; attractiveness of teacher's occupation; Ñopo decomposition
