You might not think of teachers as players in our growing “gig economy.” After all, a teaching job seems like the ultimate form of guaranteed employment. Turns out, a significant number of teachers do work second jobs. In fact, teachers are more likely than others to work a second job. It’s a summer thing, right? Apparently not, but we’ll get to that below.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) conducts a year-round survey, called the American Time Use Survey, in which it asks individuals how they have spent their time both on the day of the survey and in the very recent past. In addition to asking about a person’s main occupation, the BLS asks if they worked another job in the last seven days. Our sample is made up of individuals with a college education who report being employed full-time from 2003 through 2016, giving us just over 36,000 observations.
Overall, teachers (defined as elementary and secondary teachers, excluding special ed) are about 30 percent more likely than non-teachers to work a second job based on survey responses. That comes down to about 11 percent of non-teachers and 14 percent of teachers. This figure changes when the type of teacher is considered, though. The chart below shows that elementary school teachers are only a little more likely than non-teachers to have a side job. The difference is quite a bit more for secondary school teachers.
I suspect part of the difference is due to the fact that teachers are paid less, so they have greater incentive to increase their income. But I did a quick statistical analysis which suggests that earnings differentials only explain something over a third of the difference between the two groups. That means there is something more than pay differentials that matter. (For the record, according to the sample data teachers and non-teachers work the same number of weekly hours at their main job.) This leads to intriguing questions: Why do more teachers choose second jobs? Is it the pay differentials? Or might it be that teachers have easier access to second jobs because teachers and tutors are in demand?
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Why are teachers more likely than others to work second jobs?
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