Teacher shortage: an analysis of the rural teachers living subsidy policy on teacher attraction and retention in rural Western China

Figures & data

Figure 1. Teachers’ school choice based on wage difference and ruralness. Adapted from McEwan (1999).

Table 1. Demographics of participants.

	Characteristics	Categories	N	%
Student-teachers	Gender	Male	794	30.7
		Female	1791	69.3
	Minority	Yes	1034	40.0
		No	1551	60.0
	Major in education	Yes	1799	69.6
		No	786	30.4
Rural teachers	Gender	Male	395	46.0
		Female	464	54.0
	Age(year)	≥50	131	15.3
		30–50	148	17.2
		≤30	580	67.5
	Marital status	Married	704	81.9
		Unmarried	155	18.1
	Education level	Below Bachelor degree	110	12.8
		Bachelor degree & above	749	87.2

Table 2. Estimation results of logit regression model.

Independent variable	Dependent variable: intention to teach in rural school (Y)
	Full samples		Arts and physical educationstudent samples
	(≤3 years)	(>3 years)	(≤3 years)	(>3 years)
RSTLP (RS)
Rural teacher living subsidy policy	0.85***	0.14*	0.65**	0.47
Tuition fee and loan reimbursement	0.26***	0.54*	0.80***	0.11*
“Ruralness” (R)
Poor school facility	0.11	0.11	−0.06	0.11
Undeveloped economy	−0.23**	−0.23**	−0.17	−0.42
Multi-disciplinary workload	0.03	0.03	−0.10	0.18
Poor education standards for children	−0.26**	−0.26**	−0.12	−0.05
Inadequate transport infrastructure	−0.26**	−0.26**	−0.56***	−0.27
Log-likelihood	2689.20	1510.90	788.93***	496.93***
Adjoint probability	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Nagelkerke R2	0.36	0.17	0.43	0.25
N	2585	2585	841	841

***Significant at the 1% level; **significant at the 5% level; *significant at the 10% level.

Table 3. Estimation results of probit model.⁵

Independent variable	Dependent variable: Intention to stay in rural school
	Model 1 (Full sample)	Model 2 (Suburb)	Model 3 (Remote area)	Model 4 (Most remote area
Level of living subsidy	0.0002 (0.0000)	0.0004 (0.0003)	0.0003 (0.0005)	−0.0006 (0.0009)
Satisfaction with subsidy policy	0.3047*** (0.036)	0.3297*** (0.065)	0.3303*** (0.068)	0.3119** (0.071)
Identification with policy	0.1565*** (0.033)	0.1339** (0.063)	0.1739*** (0.062)	0.2008*** (0.067)
Preudo R2	0.0583	0.1131	0.065	0.0872
Log-likelihood	145.23	99.28	49.31	58.00
Prob>chi 2	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000
N	895	397	266	232

***Significant at the 1% level; **significant at the 5% level; *significant at the 10% level.

Table 4. The actual and expected range of subsidies for rural teachers.

Subsidy category (RMB per month)	Real subsidy received by rural teacher		Subsidy expected by rural teacher
	N	%	N	%
≤200	243	50.21	23	6.76
200–300	191	39.46	45	13.24
300–500	24	4.96	97	28.53
500–1000	18	3.72	102	30.00
>1000	8	1.65	73	21.47
Valid response sample	484		340

The average salary of rural teachers in our survey was 4,403 RMB per month.

McEwan, P. J. (1999). Recruitment of rural teachers in developing countries. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(8), 849–859. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-051X(99)00025-6

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