What people earn
Children's views on payment for
different jobs
By Kim Tullar
age 11
One of Tony Blair's not so famous quotes,
“I wish I was paid a footballer’s salary”
What I am trying to find out…
…what children think about payment for
different jobs.
My Method
I devised a questionnaire to find out
children's views.
I handed the questionnaires out to a
year 5/6 class and a year 3/4 class.
Some findings
Question 2 asked children to select the
highest and the lowest paid jobs from a list.
Y3/4 did not seem to realise which jobs were
paid the most.
Y5/6 knew more about it.
Question 3
Do you think different jobs should be paid
the same and why?
Most people in both year groups said no.
Reasons given included
The main reason given by children in both
year groups was ‘Harder or difficult jobs
should be paid more’ .
About 10% of each class said
‘Everyone should earn the same amount of
money’ .
About 20% of year 3/4 said that
‘Jobs with longer hours should be paid
more’.
Question 4
Average wages for the following jobs are:
A Premier League footballer £1.5 million a year
A doctor £80,000 a year
A school cook £12,000 a year
Do you think this is fair?
Y5/6
Y3/4
Yes
9
15
No
19
15
Question 6
If you could decide how much different jobs
were paid which of the following things do
you think deserve the most money?
Being a celebrity
Helping others
Need to pass lots of exams for the job
Doing a dangerous job
Doing a dirty job
Doing a
dirty job
Doing a
dangerous
job
Passing
lots of
exams
Helping
others
Being a
celebrity
Number of children
These are the responses
14
12
10
8
6
Y5/6
Y3/4
4
2
0
Question 7
Which of the following jobs is the most
important for your town and which the
least?
Footballers
Doctors
Teachers
Pop stars
Rubbish Collectors
Both years agreed that doctors are the most
important to the town.
Year 3/4 thought teachers were nearly as
important.
Both years agreed that footballers and pop
stars were the least important to the town.
Question 8
Which of the following jobs is the most
important to you and which the least?
The responses were basically the same as
in the last question.
My conclusion
Most children seemed to think that jobs that
helped others or difficult jobs should be paid
the most and entertainment jobs should be
paid less than they are.
Afterthoughts
If I had the opportunity, I would like 16 year
olds and adults to respond to my
Questionnaire.
References
www.haveyoursay.org/about93.html
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3180454
.stm
The Times Thursday May 25th 2006