Early childhood educators in the United States earn considerably less than their K–12 counterparts, and, among early educators, teachers of color earn less than their White peers. However, the drivers of these wage gaps are not well understood. Using data from a unique, large sample of early educators (N = 18, 383) working in sites that receive public funds in Virginia, we document significant racial and ethnic pay gaps. These wage gaps persist across models that account for a more comprehensive set of relevant variables than previous research, including sector and geographic region as well as teachers’ role, education, and experience. We found that, on average, White teachers earned 19. 51 per hour, 1. 43 more than Black teachers and 1. 15 more than Hispanic teachers. While sector, region, and teachers’ roles, education, and experience were all correlated with racial and ethnic wage differences, differences persisted not only across models that accounted for these factors but also in models comparing educators working in the same site.
Bassok et al. (Thu,) studied this question.