I was pretty shocked when my friend—a certified kindergarten teacher with a university degree— told me she makes 190k a month. Is it me, or is this salary horrendously low? I’m talking about certified Japanese kindergarten teachers. Sure, she gets a three months’ salary bonus once a year, but that’s heavily taxed so it’s really not that much money. She also works several Saturdays a year. The average salary for kindergarten teachers in my area is 180k-200k. This is much lower than what eikaiwa teachers make! Could this low salary be part of the reason why kindergarten enrollment can be so competitive?
Edit: her base salary is actually 165k. 190k includes fixed overtime pay.
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How many years is it since she started working? The average first-year monthly salary for those with a bachelors degree (no masters) in Japan is something like 210k, so it’s not rediculously low compared to average if she’s a recent grad.
Kindergarten teachers don’t have university degrees, they go to junior colleges.
They get paid so little because so little is invested in childcare, and because they exploit their passion for working with kids https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passion_pay
This may be somewhat outdated information, but my understanding is that working as a hoikushi is a stopgap job before finding a husband and “retiring” to become a wife and mother.
The government subsidizes kindergartens and so limits how much they can charge, which basically sets salaries for teachers. Kindergarten teachers are not all female and not all waiting to be married, so you’ll see some older teachers as well, and you’ll see that some of them have to eventually change jobs in order to support their own families.
Many of my students graduate a four year degree and their starting pay is 180k a month. They’ll most likely live at home or in a dorm but… it’s not a lot.
According to government data the average preschool teacher has worked for 8.2 years and makes about 3.66 million per year (including bonus). This is right around the average and median incomes for a woman in Japan.
So, if you like kids, it seems like practical career choice.
Most people are not looking to get rich from their job and incomes in Japan are likely lower than you think across the board.
No money in, no money out. It is another one of the many issues with low child birth rate.
I worked in a kindergarten many moons ago and the teachers got about 180,000yen salary and were expected to “retire” by 32-35 years old. I was told that the “payoff” was that if they served their time consistently then the encho sensei would arrange to have them employed by the government in the education department where they could secure a lifetime job. So it’s kind of an indentured servitude. If they leave before the end, they get nothing out of it. And once they’re ensconced in the Ed dept, there’s no way to disemploy them so it’s a guarantee nothing will change. Just another part of the rotten structure in Japan.
Because it’s a low wage job despite the burden and responsibility they carry.
That said, half the women who live alone on their own make less than 3 million yen. It’s not an extremely low salary compared to other jobs women typically take.
Not just youchien teachers.
Pick pretty much any job.
That person could triple their pay overnight by leaving Japan and doing the exact same job in a first-world country.
I think you are meeting a reality of salaries in Japan. Salaries are 30-50% lower compared to the US across the board, education especially.
It is very low which is why a lot of kindergartens and daycares have problems with understaffing
That salary should be illegal. How can someone live on that
> Could this low salary be part of the reason why kindergarten enrollment can be so competitive?
Indeed it is. Youchien/Hoikuen are notoriously understaffed, which makes it hard to enroll. Parents know this which makes it hard to have more kids.
Then the geezers in the Diet wonder why nobody wants to have kids anymore.
FWIW, the bonus is taxed no differently than normal salary; with the bonus included her effective monthly pay is 234k a month. Still super low for someone entrusted with children.
As for why, it’s simple and the same for most jobs: because there are qualified people that accept the job at that level of pay.
It could be to do with immigration, too. Doesn’t explain native low salaries, but it explains why eikaiwa teachers make more.
Back when I was job hunting, the attendant at HelloWork told me in no uncertain terms that if my monthly salary was any less than 220K, there was a considerably higher chance my visa would be rejected, so to ignore any job offers below that.
In other words, there is a certain minimum boundary that foreigners must earn to get a visa, whereas there is no such restriction for native teachers, allowing for their employers to screw them over even more.
If anyone reading this is job hunting by the way, even if 220K is not a hard limit, I would implore you to find employment earning over that anyway (especially if you live in Tokyo). 220K is a pitiful salary unless the company is heavily subsidising your housing or something on top of that, and even then you really want to be earning above that – even at entry level – for any profession.
We had 2 of maybe the best teacher at our kindergarten leave the job this end of march. Sure they were young, in their 20s, but they did a wonderful job. Kid loved them, always knew the little detail of what he did at school, what he likes etc.
Both left because money is too small for the hours and energy they put in, and finding even a boring secretary job pays more for less hours nowadays. Hell, at 200k/month +3 month bonus that’s less than 4 milion a year, which is close to what people in Konbini earn…
Toxic gender norms.
FYI, ECE workers in almost all countries are paid abysmal salaries. Its a crucial period of child development that can affect the rest of their lives, and is badly needed by working parents. Yet the people who give so much of their time and energy in these fields aren’t even paid living wages. For example in the states, many daycare workers make minimum wage.
I would love to see this resolved. My son sometimes calls me “sensei” accidentally because he spends so much time at his daycare and has such a connection with his teachers.
Children are literally the future of a society, and the people tasked with keeping them safe, educating them, and nurturing them for a majority of the week are underpaid, overworked, and under appreciated.
I’m just an NPC so I feel like I can’t do anything to help except have an appreciative attitude and try to raise my kid to be respectful. Wish I could do more.
Because ALL yochien teachers get low salaries. Because if they were paid more, there would be more of them, enabling more moms to work outside the home, actually fulfilling the government’s stated aim to achieve such a result.
But since it’s just lip service and the formal LDP position is women are housewives who take the husband’s name and only work part time outside of the house when they aren’t doing PTA or cooking or raising kids, therefore salaries will stay low, ensuring an inadequate supply of teachers.
Considering what teachers are expected to put up with, regardless of where they are…
The profession is criminally underfunded.
[https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d00887/japanese-teachers-at-the-breaking-point-long-hours-blamed-for-growing-shortage.html](https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d00887/japanese-teachers-at-the-breaking-point-long-hours-blamed-for-growing-shortage.html)
Supply and demand.
Apropos of nothing, I made minimum wage as a qualified nursery teacher in England too. Another example of an essential yet totally underpaid job.
And the hours…
Capitalism in action. It exploits people that are doing something out of a sense of duty towards society or out of love of the job.
Theres simply enough people willing to do the job at such a salary that that is the salary :/
I made more as an Eikaiwa teacher than I did working in a school.
But teaching English in Japan is low pay anyway
I knew some who also made money on the side working in kyabakura…among other means.