I think you guys were applying my analogy too broadly and taking it out of the context for which it was intended. It brought home my point that difficulty of the job doesn't really correlate with higher salaries.aaron wrote:
also i chuckled pretty heartily at the teachers v. construction workers analogy, too, but then i realized that oversimplifying the correlation between two factors down to the basic facets (in this case, and in most cases when this happens, money) aligns very well with the same ideology that would place a nuclear engineering major at more value to society than an elementary education major. kinda like saying that corn syrup is more valuable to food production than, say, water or sunlight.
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I am also not necessarily talking societal values but more so economic. Typically, the more exclusionary or difficult the training or education such as an engineering degree, a doctorate etc... will result in higher pay. The link even spelled some of that out by saying some degrees with only a bachelor as compared to a masters or doctorate had large disparities of pay.
All one needs to be a construction worker is a physically able body. Once one gets experience he is more valuable, but you need none of that to begin. The work can be really tough, but since most people could be a construction worker, pay reflects that.
Teachers need a bachelors and some some post grad certification. While that does take 4-5 years of education, it is less time than or relatively easier than that of a doctor or engineer. Therefore, the more easily attainable degree for teaching has more available workers and more competition for jobs.
It gets a bit murkier as there has to be an underlying lucrative industry to support the higher salaries. So one can get a doctorate in certain fields and still not have a pay that reflects it. It is also different in that an engineer with a masters or doctorate isn't worth the costs of the education as compared to the salary, when viewed in that way.