When did school teaching become a career? Evidence from British Columbia, 1901-1941.
Mary MacKinnon
Chris Minns
Economic History Department
LSE
[email protected]
May 2011
FIRST DRAFT: PRELIMINARY
1 Introduction
Teaching was one of the first skilled occupations widely available to women. Census data
indicate that roughly x percent of employed women worked as teachers in Canada in 1901, and y
percent worked as teachers in the United States in 1900. The origins of the feminization of school
teaching have been discussed for both the United States and Canada (Carter 1986; Perlmann and
Margo 2001; Prentice 1975; Sager 2007). Feminisation brought thousands of women into teaching,
but to what extent were these women developing a career profile associated with long-term
attachment to the profession? Evidence on this front is less clear. Perlmann and Margo (2001) argue
that feminisation and the spread of graded schools in US cities helped create a two-tier market for
teachers, with a small number of male head teachers and principals performing administrative duties
and managing schools staffed largely by women. The structure of pay was on offer contributes to
the value of attachment to a teaching career. Discrimination in the labour market would lead to pay
differentials that discouraged career development. It is well known that female labour market
opportunities in the early 20th century were strongly shaped by the advent of internal labour markets
designed to structure career employment in white-collar organisations. Promotion procedures were
typically oriented in a way that heavily favoured male employees (Seltzer 2007), effectively providing
a mechanism for wage discrimination to take place. Marriage bars (whether formal or informal)
forced most educated women to choose between family and career at an early stage in the life cycle.
It is well known that this practice was often applied in teaching: the majority of American school
boards enforced marriage bars at some point between 1900 and 1940 (Goldin 1988).
Pay would also
depend on the demand for teachers and the supply of potential teachers on offer. The availability of
prospective teachers (male or female), teacher requirements within schools, and the training of
teachers should affect salary and career outcomes.
This paper uses evidence from the market for teachers in British Columbia to evaluate
changes in career opportunities for female teachers in the early 20th century. In British Columbia, the
digitisation of several cross-sections of the Annual Reports of Education (ARE) between 1901 and
1941 provides detailed evidence on pay and teacher characteristics over an extended time period. One
objective of the paper is to assess the extent to which patterns of relative pay for Canadian teachers
resembled those in US states in roughly the same time period. A second objective is to explore how
pay structures evolved as British Columbia’s schooling system saw significant expansion, large-scale
changes in the way pupils were taught, and increasing standardisation and professionalization of
teacher training. These pay structures can illustrate the range of opportunities available to skilled
women over this period, and how they compared to male workers in the same sector. We also explore
longitudinal patterns by tracing teachers between the five cross-sections of teacher records that we
have digitised so far.
2 British Columbia and its Public School System
In 1881, ten years after joining the Dominion of Canada, the total population of BC was only
50 thousand. By 1901, after the transcontinental railway linking BC to central Canada had been
constructed, and resource exploration and exploitation had seriously begun, the population was 180
thousand. In the next decade, BC’s population more than doubled to 392 thousand, and in 1921 was
525 thousand. By then, there were two major railways with lines cutting through the mountains to the
west coast. Vancouver was a large port, and with its developing suburbs much the largest city in the
province. BC depended heavily on resource industries (mining, lumbering, fishing, some kinds of
agriculture). Although the Great Depression hit BC hard, population growth continued, with the
population nearing 820 thousand by 1941. Throughout the period, a serious problem for the school
system was the sudden need to provide schools in remote places when mines or mills opened, and to
shut them when people moved away. Several mountain chains run roughly north - south through BC,
so that even with the development of rail links, many settlements were extremely remote.
In 1901, about 75% of BC children aged 7 to 14 attended school for some part of the year.
By 1921, the proportion was 92%, with substantial increases seen in both rural and urban areas. BC
was somewhat unusual by Canadian standards in that one non-sectarian public school system was
funded. 1 Private schools catered mainly for wealthy families. Given that most children attended
public schools, population rose sharply, and school attendance rates increased, the number of children
enrolled in BC public schools rose dramatically, from roughly 2,500 in 1880 to over 20,000 by 1900
and about 60,000 on the eve of the First World War. By 1920, there were roughly 80,000 pupils
enrolled, about 110,000 by 1930 and 120,000 in 1940. Most jurisdictions in North America
experienced considerable growth in pupil numbers over this period, but British Columbia was near the
upper end of the distribution in terms of growth rates, especially in the years to 1920.
Consistent with the variety of settlements, the BC school system included a wide variety of
types of schools (Table 1). One-room schools remained the norm in rural areas. Those that could be
operated based on standard provincial government grants and local tax revenue we describe as
“public” schools. Rural schools in very low population / poor areas received special provincial
government grants, and they are called “assisted” schools. Some rural and most urban elementary
schools had more than one classroom and teacher, and these are called “graded” schools. (In the few
cases where an assisted school had more than one room, we consider it to be a graded school.) Only
pupils who had passed the high school entrance exam could attend a high school. One-room high
1
At the time of Confederation, and for many years afterwards, BC had only a very small Roman Catholic minority. Most Roman Catholic pupils attended public schools (Johnson, 1964, p. 133). 3 schools were generally one room of a graded school. In theory, even the smallest high schools were
able to prepare pupils for the full range of high school exams. Multi-room high schools were located
in the larger towns and cities. 2 Graded schools were also initially located in urban areas, but they
rapidly spread to rural locations as the first half of the century progressed. Junior high schools and
superior schools are introduced to the system in the 1920s, and are present in the data we have
collected for 1931 and 1941. By 1941, the provincial education department changed the manner in
which schools were classified, with high schools, junior/superior schools, and elementary schools
subdivided by location type (city, community district municipality, rural district). Only a single oneroom school (Kingston Street, Victoria) remains in operation at this date.
A rapid increase in population, number of schools, and average size of school placed
continual pressure on teacher recruitment. The change in the composition of school provision in the
province should also have been important In shaping teacher supply. High school teachers (and to a
lesser extent, junior high school teachers) were expected to have the academic competence to teach
advanced subject material. Graded schools, in particular in large graded schools in the cities, required
principals and vice principals prepared to undertake administrative tasks. Age grading within these
schools meant that teachers could specialise in teaching to either younger or older children. This sort
of specialisation created a role for greater pedagogical support in the form of professional teacher
training, and one would think that greater investments in teacher human capital would increase
attachment to the profession. Given the sparse population at the beginning of the century, for many
years BC subscribed to the “if you know it, you can teach it” philosophy of teaching. The provincial
normal school (in Vancouver) opened in early 1901. Until then, teaching certificates were issued
based on passing examinations, similar to academic exams taken by pupils in BC high schools. The
higher the mark, the higher the class of certificate awarded. Intending teachers also had to write an
exam demonstrating a knowledge of the rules governing BC public schools, and familiarity with a few
texts on educational matters. In the summer of 1900, for example, candidates had to answer questions
such as “State by what means you would inculcate the following virtues: – truthfulness, modesty,
diligence.” and ““Short division is commonly exhibited before long; but this order should be
reversed.” Why?” Choices for the composition topic included “Life is a School,” “The Study of
2
Graded schools in small towns sometimes had a “superior” class. These were almost always towns without a high school. Pupils in this division studied all or most of the subjects of the first year of high school. By 1930, these classes were identified as “superior schools.” Some of these occupied a separate building from the graded school. For 1930‐31, we group the superior schools with the “junior high schools” that were being established in Vancouver and some other larger centres. In earlier years, we include the teachers of the superior classes with the graded school teachers. 4 History,” and “How Canada is Governed.” By about 1910, all intending elementary school teachers
were supposed to study at the Normal School for at least one term, or show that they had completed a
similar course elsewhere. However, many “temporary” certificates were still issued, presumably
mainly to those with no teacher training at all, and Normal School pupils often prepared for academic
examinations that they should have passed prior to enrolling in the Normal School. 3 It was common
for teachers to upgrade their class of certificate, either by registering for a second term at the Normal
School (the “advanced” course), or by passing more advanced academic exams, or both. 4 Most
Normal School graduates did teach in the public school system, if only briefly. 5 School inspectors
travelled the province checking on the progress of the schools and giving advice to teachers and
school trustees. 6 However, in the early period, the gap between inspections could for remote locations
be twenty or more years (1901 Report, p. 263). The inspectors were aware of the difficult conditions
faced by teachers in many places (such as over-crowded or ramshackle buildings, and irregular
attendance by pupils), and their reports noted the efforts of the current teacher. At the weaker end of
the spectrum, a school with 10 pupils present was described as “in bad order; discipline weak; all
work backward; grammar and arithmetic specially weak; room not clean in any respect.” (P. 268).
However, the same inspector wrote of a school of 11 “Work backward but improving; teacher doing
excellent work in reading with primer classes.” (P. 269)
Around 1920, a requirement of formal professional training for intending high school teachers
was introduced. All along, high school teachers of academic subjects normally had to possess an
“academic” certificate: this was issued to holders of undergraduate degrees from Canadian or British
Empire universities, and to a small number of non-degree holders who passed academic exams and
(likely) demonstrated that they had spent some time as university students. Until 1920, applicants for
an academic certificate demonstrated their fitness to take over a classroom by passing a written exam
on educational matters.
3
Typically second year high school exams. Failure on one paper required a full re‐take. 4
The intent was to stop issuing temporary and 3rd class certificates. By the early 1920s, this goal was largely achieved. Even in 1900, holders of 3rd class certificates rarely taught in graded schools. 5
Almost 90% of those who completed the Advanced Session in June 1910 appear in the teacher pay lists of 1910‐11. However, only 60% of those who completed the Preliminary Session in December 1907 were employed in 1910‐11. 6
Their brief reports on individual schools and teachers were sometimes were printed in the Provincial Annual Report. 5 Early on, virtually all high school teachers had to be recruited from outside the province for
the simple reason that there was no university in British Columbia. Around the turn of the century,
the Vancouver and Victoria High Schools, in association with McGill University (Montreal), began to
teach university-level courses. By about 1910 it was possible to earn a BA through McGill College
Vancouver (Johnson, p. 82). 7 Some students who had grown up in B.C. travelled east to Manitoba or
central Canada to undertake all their university studies or to complete a degree begun at one of the
university colleges. In 1915, the University of British Columbia was founded. One of our
assumptions is that degree-holding teachers who earned their degree outside of BC did not grow up in
BC. However, we assume that after 1910, almost all McGill degrees were in fact earned in BC.
Teachers and Teacher Salaries in British Columbia, 1901-1941
As in other parts of North America, teaching was a feminized profession in British Columbia
as early as 1901.8 The share of teachers who were women rose from just above 60 percent in 1901 to
almost 80 percent in 1921, before declining to 60 percent in 1941 (Figure 1). Studies of American
schooling show a similar rise to the first decade of the twentieth century. Perlmann and Margo (2001,
p. 97) find that the female share rose from 71 to 86 percent in Michigan between 1880 and 1910.
Both changing composition of the teaching workforce within school type, and the rising share of
teaching that took place in graded schools contributed significantly to this change. For British
Columbia, a similar explanation would appear to work well between 1901 and 1921. Graded school
positions dominated teaching by 1921, with the share rising from 46 to 71 percent over 20 years
(Figure 2). Over seventy percent of graded school teachers were women in 1901, a share that rose
slightly to 1921. This figure is broadly consistent with a model under which a male head teacher runs
an elementary school in which almost all (if not all) of the other teachers are women.9 One-room
schools were also heavily female by 1901, so changing composition of who teaches within schools
appears to be less important in British Columbia than in American states up to 1910. Post-1921, the
female share declines to the level seen in 1901. Composition appears to be a good candidate for this
change, as the types of schools expanding rapidly over the last two decades were high schools and
junior high schools. Together high schools and junior high schools employed 38 percent of teachers
in 1941, but women were in the minority in both.
7
A theological college affiliated with the University of Toronto was set up in the 1890s (Johnson, 1964, p. 79), and a few students earned Arts degrees. 8 See Carter (1986), Perlmann and Margo (2001), and Strober and Best (1979) for evidence of feminization in the United States. 9 Can check if this is true! In 1921, over 60 percent of male teachers in graded schools were listed as the head teacher (in the first division). 6 More interesting than changes in the gender composition of teaching is what happened to pay
over this period. Research on teacher pay in American cities between about 1880 and 1920 find
famel/male salary ratios in the order of .40 to .57.10 (Perlmann and Margo, 2001, p. 117) British
Columbia pay ratios were higher, but declined sharply between 1901 and 1921. Average pay among
female teachers fell from 83 percent to 63 percent to that of male teachers (Figure 4). The decline
was less steep in the cities of Victoria and Vancouver, where pay ratios fell from 65 to 59, which
remains at the high end relative to comparable locations in the United States. After 1921, female pay
increases sharply relative to male pay, with the ratio rising to 73 (71 in the two major cities) by 1941.
Scholars of feminization in the late 19th century have observed that relative pay fell as the share of
female teachers rose, a trend we also see in British Columbia to 1921. After 1921, pay convergence
occurs while the female share declines.
Before pursing explanations for the changing relative pay of female teachers, it is useful to
think about what was happening to the distribution of male and female teacher salaries. Public school
teaching was not homogenous, with tasks differing greatly between elementary and secondary
schools. If the employment of school teachers offered internal promotion opportunities, the data
should show pay differentiation between workers with similar qualifications. Figures 5 to 9 use
kernel density estimates to illustrate the distribution of pay outcomes received.11 These figures show
clear differences in how teaching careers differed between men and women. In 1901, both men and
women had similar-looking pay structures – men were better paid, but there was a clear mass in the
distribution of pay for both sexes (Figure 5). Between 1901 and 1921, female pay remains
concentrated around a single pay point, while male pay is spread across a wider distribution (Figure 5,
6, 7). This is consistent with men receiving a greater range of pay as they move up the pay scale and
possibly into better paid positions in high school and elementary school administration. Between
1921 and 1941, male teachers retain this structure of pay, while the female distribution begins to
spread. By 1941, a female upper tail that looks a little bit like the male experience is beginning to be
in evidence. Closing the gap between female and male pay, therefore, seems to be driven in part by a
widening of the female pay distribution, though mode pay for women remains near the bottom of the
full range of male pay. One possible explanation for this pattern is a change in female career
structures. If women began to benefit from greater promotion opportunities within the school system,
the female/male pay ratio should decline within school types, while variation within school types
increased. We would also expect more evidence of female teachers developing extended careers in
teaching that allow for promotions and pay rises to actually take place. Another possibility is that pay
10 Strober and Best (1979) report a female/male pay ratio of .61 for San Francisco on 1979 11 The Epanechinkov function and a bandwidth of 2.5 is used in all estimates. 7 structures remained relatively constant within school types, but greater female access to high schools,
and in particular junior high school positions widened the distribution of female salaries. If this
explanation has merit, convergence in the compositions of school in which men and women were
employed would contribute explaining the patterns in Figures 5 to 9. On the supply side, changes in
the qualifications and quality of qualifications are potentially important. A larger fraction of male
teachers worked with academic or first class qualifications than did women (Figure 10), but this gap
closed significantly, especially after 1921. It is also plausible that the perceived quality of teaching
certificates improved over time. At all levels, teachers entering the system after 1921 would have
received more formal teacher training from the normal school that earlier cohorts, and certification
may have been particularly important for women.
Explaining male and female pay structures
Data from the ARE provide some useful information about the schools teachers taught in and
their qualifications, and we use these to assess the role of differences in characteristics versus
differences in the returns to characteristics in shaping the pay distributions observed in Figures 5 to 9.
We use the counterfactual kernel density technique first developed by Dinardo, Fortin, and Lemieux
(1996) to do this. The essence of the approach is to estimate re-weighted kernel density distributions:
what would the female pay distribution look like had women had the same distribution of school and
qualification characteristics as men, and what would the male pay distribution look like if men had the
same distribution of characteristics as women. The first of this shows the role of different
characteristics, such as a higher share with lower qualifications among women , in shaping the
difference between female and male pay. The second illustrates the contribution of differences in the
return to characteristics – if women with different certificate types were rewarded for these as well as
men were, how different would pay outcomes be?12 This approach is more useful in the context of
data of teacher pay than the standard Oaxaca decomposition, which would tell us about contributions
of characteristics and returns to characteristics for mean salaries rather than the broader distribution.
In the interests of space, results are presented only for 1901, 1921, and 1941.
In all three
years, shifting the distribution of characteristics has a minor impact on the implied pay distribution.
Women would have been only somewhat better paid had they the same propensity to work in better
paid schooling grades, or had a higher proportion of higher teaching certificates. Shifting the returns
to characteristics, however, has large impact on the counterfactual pay distribution for women. Even
12 We use the dfl command in Stata to estimate these counterfactuals. As in Figures 5 to 9, the Epanechinkov function and a bandwidth of 2.5 is used in all estimates. 8 in 1901, had women within school types been paid as well as men, the distribution would be shifted
well to the right. If the counterfactual instead asks what would be the effect of shifting the returns to
characteristics, the change in the pay distribution is smaller, though increasingly the receipt of
academic and first class certificates was associated with greater penetration into high schools, graded
schools (in 1921), and junior high schools. The effects of shifting the returns to characteristics (in
particular the type of school) are most pronounced in 1921. What do these findings say about the
importance of supply and demand changes? On the supply side, better training and better school
allocation appears unlikely to raise the pay of female teachers in a significant fashion. On the demand
side, differences in pay by type of school appear particularly pronounced in 1921. The spread of
graded schools and expansion of high schools offered significant promotion opportunities almost
exclusively for men to this point. The contribution of school-type returns declines somewhat to 1941
could indicate either a modest decline in gender-based discrimination in pay and promotion, or an
increase in the extent to which female teacher pursued extended careers in teaching. In a final
counterfactual distribution, we ask how the pay distribution of women in 1921 would change had they
the same distribution of schools and qualifications as women teaching in 1941. To provide consistent
school categories in both years, this decomposition collapses school types into “elementary” and
“secondary.” Figure 14 shows that under this counterfactual scenario, the pay distribution sees a
modest shift to the right and somewhat thicker upper tail. The picture looks very similar if
qualifications are excluded from the counterfactual. This final comparison suggests that women
procuring more places in secondary schools with the advent of junior high schools led to improved
pay in teaching over time, despite the persistence of poor returns to skill and position for female
teachers.
When did teaching become a career? The longitudinal persistence of teachers
Salary evidence suggests that women received relatively limited opportunities to receive
higher pay out of teaching. To fully understand career profiles, a complementary piece of evidence to
consider is the extent to which teachers remained in the profession in the long term. The sources
compiled in this paper allow for teachers to be traced between 10 year intervals. Tracing is based on
finding teachers with the same name over time. This is clearly an imperfect approach. It is
impossible to link women who marry in service and take on their husband’s family name following
marriage. Between 1910 and 1931 only about five percent of British Columbia’s women teacher were
married, but we will miss any flows into our out of this group. This method is also vulnerable to
spelling mistakes and transcription errors relating to the recorded names of teachers, but this is less
likely to pose a substantial barrier with relatively small-scale administrative data used here than in
attempts to link individuals between cross-sections of national census data. We will also miss any
teachers who were temporarily absent, and have no real evidence at this point as to how large a
problem this might pose. A final problem is the existence of teachers sharing the same name and
9 initials. There are far fewer cases like these than when constructing linked census data, but some
potential matches are lost due to uncertainty over who is who in one of the two periods. In what
follows, the analysis is restricted to the subset of teachers with unique names.
Persistence rates are estimated by calculating the share of teachers in year t (with a unique
name) who remained present in year t+10. Comparing male and female teachers, the striking finding
is that of divergence over time. About 30 percent of female teachers from 1901 remained in teaching
in 1911. This is somewhat higher than the corresponding figure of 27 percent for male teachers
(Table 2). The persistence rates of women teachers fall to 1931, before returning to 31 percent in
1941. Male teachers show a steady rise in persistence, with more than half of the teachers from 1931
remaining in the British Columbia’s public schools in 1941. Looking at teachers with different initial
qualifications, or teaching in different grades of schools does little to alter the picture – the more
qualified teachers, and those teaching in high schools and/or the cities were more likely to be found
ten years on, but the relative male/female patterns remain much as in the aggregate figures. In
figures not reported here, we have also looked at the extent to which teachers moved between schools,
or between school grades over time. There we find that few teachers switch school types over time –
there is almost no movement between elementary and junior high school and high school teaching,
and when graded schools are a distinct category, little movement between one-room schools and
graded schools. The main message coming from these figures, though, is that teaching was becoming
a career in the early 20th century – for men, not for women.
A final facet we have explored is whether persistence paid. To ask this question, we
estimated OLS regression of log monthly pay against school type and certificate for male and female
teachers, including a dummy variable indicating whether a teacher was matched between two
successive cross-sections. We estimate these regressions for 1911, 1921, 1931, and 1941. We do not
present the results here in the interest of space, but report the findings of the main coefficient of
interest, the “return” to being linked from time period t to time period t+10. This coefficient ranges
from 0.02 to 0.10, but there is no clear pattern that emerges when comparing men and women – in
some years the female coefficient is double that of men, in other years the opposite is true. It is also
difficult to make a clean interpretation of this coefficient, which will reflect both returns to experience
and selective attrition. For both sexes, teachers that we know were experienced were paid more, but
there is no evidence of a striking gap between sexes for the premium received by those who remained
in the system at least 10 years.
Conclusions
This paper offers a preliminary overview of employment and pay patterns of Canadian
teachers in the first half of the twentieth century. What can be learnt from our investigation of five
cross-sections of teache r salaries? Pay gaps between male and female teachers remained large in
10 1941. Some convergence in qualifications and the schools teachers taught in occurred after between
1901, but gaps remained in 1941, as was the case with teacher pay. Examining the distribution of pay
outcomes shows that the structure of pay shifted for both men and women, but at different times and
to a different degree. Male teachers have a wide spread of salaries by 1921; for women, mode salaries
remain low throughout, but the upper tail begins to expand significantly by 1941. Did changes in
teacher and school characteristics account for the shifts in the relative distributions? From the
estimation of reweighted kernel density functions, the answer appears to be “not really.” Female pay
would have been a bit higher for most had they had the same qualifications and taught in the same
types of schools as men. Differences in the return to characteristics do most of the work in
explaining why the distributions are so different. We are currently unsure of the underlying
explanations for this finding. Unobserved differences in the quality of schools and qualifications are
unlikely to matter, given the increasing professionalization of teacher training. Labour market
discrimination against women is an obvious candidate explanation, and we hope to find out more
about how the personal policies used in public education in British Columbia facilitated male-female
pay gaps. Perhaps the most striking finding is that tracing teachers between the five cross-sections
shows increasing long-term attachment to teaching only on the part of male teachers. While pay
opportunities for women improved somewhat to 1941, there is no evidence of an associated rise in the
share of women who remained in teaching over a ten year window.
Was teaching becoming a career for women in early 20th century Canada? The evidence we
have collected so far suggests that the answer to this questions is “no.” Few women seem to have
remained in teaching longer than 10 years, and the female pay structure in 1941 was more compressed
than the male distribution thirty years earlier. Women did benefit from improved qualifications and
opportunities to teach older children at secondary level, but the rewards to these characteristics
remained far smaller than for their male counterparts.
11 References
Antos, J. and S. Rosen, (1975) “Discrimination in the Market for Public School Teachers.” Journal of
Econometrics.
Carter, S. (1986) “Occupational Segregation, Teachers’ Wages, and American Economic Growth.”
Journal of Economic History 46, pp. 373-383.
DiNardo, J., N. Fortin, and T. Lemieux (1996) “Labour market institutions and the distribution of
wages, 1973-1992: a semiparametric approach.” Econometrica 64(5), pp. 1001-1044.
Goldin, C. (1990) Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women.
Oxford: OUP, 1990.
Perlmann, J. And B. Margo (2001) Women’s Work? American Schoolteachers, 1650-1920. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Prentice, A., (1975) “The Feminization of Teaching in British North America and Canada, 18451875.” Histoire Sociale-Social History xx(x), pp. 13-15.
Sager, E., (2007) “Women Teachers in Canada, 1881-1901: Revisiting the `Feminization’ of an
Occupation.” Canadian Historical Review, 88(2), pp. 201-236.
Seltzer, A., (2007) “Female Salaries and Careers in British Banking, 1915-1941.”
Strober, M, and L. Best (1979) “The Female/Male Salary Differential in Public Schools: Some
Lessons From San Fransisco, 1879.” Economic Inquiry, 17(2), pp. 218-236.
12 Table 1: British Columbia Schools, 1900/1 to 1940/1
# High
schools
1901
1906
1911
# Junior /
Superior
schools
# Graded
schools
5
% enrollment % primary
in junior high enrollment in
or high
one-room
schools
schools
23
133
266
298
403
1915
36
243
488
1921
53
310
619
9
15
1931
88
380
689
20
12
13
78
# High
schools
1941
54
# Oneroom
schools
123
47
2
37
28
4
23
19
# Junior / # Elementary
Superior
schools
schools
91
1029
35
13 Table 2: Teacher persistence, 1901 to 1941
1901 to 1911
1911 to 1921
1921 to 1931
1931 to 1941
All men
.27 (205)
.37 (339)
.45 (609)
.54 (1066)
Men, Vancouver & Victoria
.34 (38)
.49 (117)
.56 (203)
.64 (415)
Men, academic
.32 (12)
.39 (121)
.47 (232)
.57 (363)
Men, first class
.29 (73)
.42 (78)
.49 (132)
.56 (372)
Men, high school
.15 (13)
.42 (57)
.45 (159)
.58 (341)
Men, graded school
.33 (69)
.43 (147)
.54 (274)
.56 (492)
All women
.30 (343)
.29 (851)
.25 (2087)
.31 (2666)
Women, Vancouver & Victoria
.39 (93)
.37 (249)
.34 (532)
.44 (906)
Women, academic
0 (5)
.38 (72)
.35 (193)
.38 (360)
Women, first class
.41 (66)
.27 (196)
.35 (354)
.29 (926)
Women, high school
0 (2)
.56 (16)
.40 (90)
.37 (231)
Women, graded school
.34 (185)
.33 (555)
.29 (1440)
.33 (1783)
14 0
.2
% female
.4
.6
.8
1
Figure 1: Female teacher share, 1901 to 1941
1901
1911
1921
year
1931
1941
15 0
.2
% of teachers
.4
.6
.8
1
Figure 2: share of teachers by school type, 1091‐1941 1901
1911
1921
year
public+assisted
jr high/superior
1931
1941
graded
high
16 .2
.4
% female
.6
.8
1
Figure 3: Female teacher share, by school type 1901
1911
graded schools
high schools
1921
year
1931
1941
jr high schools
public/assisted schools
17 40
female/male pay ratio
55
70
85
100
Figure 4: Pay ratios, 1901 to 1941 1901
1911
all schools
1921
year
1931
1941
Vancouver and Victoria
18 0
kdensity paymo (epan, bw=2.5)
.02
.04
.06
.08
Figure 5: Female and Male Pay Distribution, 1901
0
50
100
150
monthly pay
men
women
19 0
kdensity paymo (epan, bw=2.5)
.01
.02
.03
.04
.05
Figure 6: Female and Male Pay Distribution, 1911
0
50
100
150
monthly pay
men
200
250
women
20 0
kdensity paymo (epan, bw=2.5)
.005
.01
.015
.02
.025
Figure 7: Female and Male Pay Distribution, 1921
0
100
200
monthly pay
men
300
400
women
21 0
kdensity paymo (epan, bw=2.5)
.005
.01
.015
.02
.025
Figure 8: Female and Male Pay Distribution, 1931
0
100
200
monthly pay
men
300
400
women
22 0
kdensity paymo (epan bw=2.5)
.005
.01
.015
.02
.025
Figure 9: Female and Male Pay Distribution, 1941
0
100
200
monthly pay
men
300
400
women
23 0
% with academic or first class certificate
20
40
60
80
100
Figure 10: Male and female teacher qualifications 1900
1910
1920
year
male
1930
1940
female
24 0
0
.02
.02
Density
.04
.06
Density
.04
.06
.08
.08
Figure 11: 1901 counterfactuals 0
50
100
150
0
50
monthly pay
100
150
monthly pay
women
women with male location, schools, certificates
.06
Density
.04
.02
0
0
.02
Density
.04
.06
.08
women with male location and schools
.08
women
0
50
100
150
0
50
monthly pay
women
women with male returns to location and school type
100
150
monthly pay
women
women with male returns to certificates
25 .025
.02
Density
.01
.015
.005
0
0
.005
Density
.01
.015
.02
.025
Figure 12: 1921 counterfactuals
0
100
300
400
0
100
women
200
monthly pay
300
400
women with male location and schools
.02
Density
.01
.015
.005
0
0
.005
Density
.01
.015
.02
.025
women with male locations and schools
.025
women
200
monthly pay
0
100
women
200
monthly pay
300
400
women with male returns to location and school type
0
100
women
200
monthly pay
300
400
women with mlae returns to certificates
26 .025
.02
Density
.01
.015
.005
0
0
.005
Density
.01
.015
.02
.025
Figure 13: 1941 counterfactuals
0
100
300
400
0
100
women
200
monthly pay
300
400
women with male locations and schools
.02
Density
.01
.015
.005
0
0
.005
Density
.01
.015
.02
.025
women with male locations and schools
.025
women
200
monthly pay
0
100
female
200
monthly pay
300
400
female with male reutrsn to location and schools
0
100
women
200
monthly pay
300
400
women with male returns to certificates
27 0
.005
Density
.01
.015
.02
Figure 14: Counterfactual women in 1921 with 1941 characteristics
0
100
women 1921
200
monthly pay
300
400
with 1941 characteristics
28