Teachers’ Wage Determination in China: Decentralisation, the Knowledge Economy, and Participation

This thesis examines the Chinese government’s effort to construct a teacher wage determination system that will raise the quality of teachers’ work to a level suited to a knowledge-intensive economy. It provides evidence to demonstrate an intentional crowd-out of market influences on teachers’ wages by the state that has left some flexibility for local governments and individual schools. It argues that the state has reregulated teachers’ wages and sought to construct a participatory wage determination regime that can balance the relationship between national needs and local contingencies, and between employee wage security and organisational flexibility and efficiency.