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A LONG WAY: A chart illustrates the lengthy procedures for young college teachers to obtain state funding for research projects (GONG LEI) |
Lian's study found that the group's average annual salary income was less than 50,000 yuan ($7,995), and only 10 percent of them earned more than 70,000 yuan ($11,193) a year.
For example, Peng made about 40,000 yuan ($6,396) from teaching and 20,000 yuan ($3,198) from conducting research each year.
In addition to their job in the university, many young teachers also took spare-time jobs to boost their income. Among the respondents to Lian's study, 14.2 percent said their income from part-time jobs were their main source of income. Nonetheless, the annual non-salary income of more than half the group was less than 20,000 yuan.
After paying daily expenses, only 31.3 percent of the respondents reported that they had surplus money to put into savings.
Actually, the average annual salary income of young college faculty members is just slightly higher than that of employees in urban enterprises nationwide.
In 2011, the average annual salary income of employees in urban enterprises (excluding private enterprises) was 42,452 yuan ($6,788), according to the 2011 China Salary Development Report recently released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.
The report said that average annual salary for executives of listed companies in 2010 reached 668,000 yuan ($106,815). For example, the average salary of staffers at Shanghai Pudong Development Bank in the year totaled 357,400 yuan ($57,149), which was about 10 times the average of urban employees. The report unveiled a widening income gap between executives and ordinary employees, as well as between different social groups.
More than half of the respondents in Lian's study—54 percent—thought the income disparity was unfair, and 65.2 percent believed that such disparity would deter people from working harder.
Lian said that both the winner-take-all social environment and universities' management system contributed to the sense of inequality among young college faculty members. According to his study, in universities, senior professors were more likely to get research funding.
Lian's research team found that although most young college faculty members complained about their treatment, overall they were cautiously optimistic about the future. Of the respondents, 38.9 percent thought things would improve in the future, 14.3 percent thought the status quo would be maintained, and 25.9 percent thought the future was hard to tell.
Chen Pingyuan, a 58-year-old professor at the Chinese Department of Peking University, said that every young generation will go through some hardship, and it is important to let excellent youth see a bright future.
In 2010, Yang published a story about the dormitory life of 20-plus teachers in their youth decades ago. Yang said that many students reading the story told him that they did not think their teachers' experience was once that difficult.
"Frankly speaking, now the income of young people teaching in universities is not that bad as some of them said," Chen told the China Youth Daily. "Of course, I hope young people will live better lives. But to expect everything all at once is not realistic."
"There are always worker bees, not only in universities, but also in companies and government departments," said Li Rui, a postgraduate student at Peking University. "To some extent, being a worker bee is an inevitable stage in our lives."
Lian suggested that special lanes should be opened to young teachers in terms of research funding application and performance evaluation. For instance, he said that in addition to regular research funding, a special fund for young college faculty members should be set up to support their research, and the young teachers can be evaluated under a separate category so that they will not have to compete with senior faculty members for resources.
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