Indicator 38: Staff Employed in Education

The percentage of the labor force employed in a country's education system provides a measure of the size of the education system as an employer in relation to other sectors of the economy. A high percentage of the labor force employed in education reflects an extensive education system with a wide range of personnel to support it. However, the indicator is also highly dependent on the number of employees in other sectors of the economy, which may fluctuate with trends in the labor market. Comparing the relative sizes of the teaching and nonteaching staff employed in education is also useful as an indicator of the level of administrative, social service, maintenance, and nonteaching instructional support provided by the education system. For a more detailed discussion of the issues associated with the composition of staff employed in education, see the sidebar entitled Staffing a country's education system.

• In the United States, teaching staff comprised 2.7 percent of the total labor force in 1992. Of the G-7 countries, the former West Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom had similar shares of teaching staff as a percentage of the total labor force (more than 2 percent). The teaching staff in Italy comprised a greater proportion of the labor force (4.2 percent).

• The percentage of teaching staff in the labor force was lower in the former West Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States than in all of the remaining countries, except for the Netherlands and Turkey.

• In all of the countries reported, the percentage of the labor force employed as teaching staff in primary and secondary schools was larger than the percentage of the labor force employed as teaching staff in higher education. To illustrate, the percentage for primary and secondary education was four times the percentage for higher education in the United States. In the former West Germany, the primary and secondary teaching staff was almost three times as large as the teaching staff in higher education, while in the United Kingdom it was seven times as large.

• Of the eight countries for which data were available, the United States had the largest nonteaching staff in education as a percentage of the total labor force (3.1 percent) and also was the only country in which nonteaching staff made up a greater percentage of the labor force than teaching staff.

Table 38: Teaching staff and nonteaching staff employed in the education system as percentages of the total labor force,/1 by level of education and country: 1992

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				Teaching staff				Nonteaching staff	
				--------------				-----------------		All
			Primary and	Higher 				Pedagogical	Support		education
Country			secondary	education	All levels2	staff3		staff4		staff
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G-75	
France			2.4		0.4		3.3		-		-		5.5
West Germany (former)	1.6		0.6		2.4		-		-		—	
Italy			3.5		0.1		4.2		0.4		0.8		5.5
Japan			1.7		0.4		2.4		(6)		0.7		3.1
United Kingdom		2.2		0.3		2.5		-		-		—
United States7		2.2		0.5		2.7		0.8		2.3		5.8
Other
Australia		2.3		0.6		2.9		0.3		1.2		4.2
Austria			3.0		0.5		3.8		-		-		—
Belgium			3.8		0.3		4.8		0.6		0.6		6.0
Czech Republic		2.4		0.3		3.5		0.7		0.0		4.2
Denmark			2.7		0.2		3.3		1.6		0.9		5.7
Finland			-		-		3.1		-		-		5.1
Hungary			3.0		0.4		4.2		(6)		2.2		6.4
Ireland			2.8		0.4		3.6		-		-		—
Netherlands		1.8		0.4		2.4		-		-		—
New Zealand		2.3		0.5		3.3		-		-		—
Spain			2.6		0.4		3.3		-		-		—
Sweden			2.3		-	 	-		-		-		—
Turkey			2.0		0.2		2.2		-		-		—
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-Not available.
1/ Full-time equivalents.
2/ Includes preprimary education.
3/ Pedagogical staff include principals, headmasters, supervisors, counselors, psychologists, librarians, etc.
4/ Support staff include clerical personnel, building operations and maintenance personnel, food service workers, etc.
5/ No data available for Canada.
6/ Data included in another category.
7/ U.S. submissions to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, March, 1996.

NOTE: See supplemental note to Indicator 38 for details on indicator calculation for Australia, Denmark, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the former West Germany and for an explanation of the calculation of full-time equivalents.

SOURCE: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Center for Educational Research and Innovation, International Indicators Project, 1995.

Figure 38: Teaching and nonteaching staff employed in education as a percentage of the labor force, by selected country:* 1992

*Countries are sorted in descending order by teaching staff as a percentage of the total labor force.

SOURCE: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Center for Educational Research and Innovation, International Indicators Project, 1995.

See supplemental notes to Indicator 38.

[Societal Support for Education]

[Indicator 39]