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Welcome to Money Diaries, where we're tackling what might be the last taboo facing modern working women: money. We're asking millennials how they spend their hard-earned money during a seven-day period — and we're tracking every last pound.
This week, we decided to ask five teachers in the UK, the United States and Indonesia about their spending habits.
Teaching isn't an easy profession but it is a job with a tremendous amount of responsibility, despite being at the lower end of the pay scale — at least in some countries. In the United Kingdom, the average yearly salary for qualified teachers is £37,400.
As Dick Startz writes at the Brookings Institute, there are some fringe benefits not calculated in pay, including a certain degree of job security and access to a pension, but that doesn't hold up for everyone.
Earlier this year, it was revealed that teachers' pay in England is down 12% over the past 10 years, with some teachers earning less than half of that earned by German teachers. And a recent blockbuster feature in the Guardian showed what life can be like for many adjunct professors in the US, some of whom have turned to sex work or sleeping in their cars to make ends meet.
It's not all doom and gloom, of course. A major reason why many people pursue careers in teaching is because they love it, and they reap personal and societal benefits from educating future generations.
Ahead, we take a look at what that's like for five women in different cities around the world, who teach part-time, full-time, are new to the work, work with children, or work with adults.
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