Special Topic: Finding and Keeping Jobs in China

Although we’re hearing it may be the beginning of the end for lavish expat lifestyles, all the perks aside, foreigners in China – especially those with white faces and passports from English speaking countries – still make vastly more than their Chinese colleagues. It’s routine for English teachers to make 4 or 5 times as much as their Chinese coworkers, even though they usually work far fewer hours. Many foreigners feel they are hired to simply be a token foreign face; and many foreigners in China have far more opportunities than they would in their home countries. On the other hand, the people hiring foreigners and paying them these salaries are usually Chinese companies. As always, when faced with a difficult question, we asked you:

Are foreigners working in China overpaid? Why or why not?

Photo: 2493™

Perspectives seeks to promote dialogue and cross-cultural understanding by featuring Chinese and foreign responses to a single question. Email us to be added to our weekly question mailing list or to suggest questions of your own and feel free to add your perspective in the comments section below.

Foreigners are usually paid a lot more than the local Chinese. I make something like 4x the average wage in my city and even more than the administrative people that I work under which makes me feel somewhat guilty. However, if schools and businesses paid foreigners wages equal to Chinese, no foreigners would want to come here to work.
J / USA

Not really, it has to be this way.
T / China

Foreigners got better payments (mostly white people, I can not say anything about others because I don’t know so much about them), it is true. But it is reasonable. Basically, white people’s countries have more power in this world, and a white face means something more than their skin color: it also means their background – education, culture, opportunity – those are their additional value.
X / China

Photo: Herr_Bert

I am not sure whether foreigners in China are overpaid or not, 'cause I am not a foreigner. But I can tell you what I known from my foreign teacher when I was in university in Guangzhou two years ago. My foreign teacher once told us that her salary was a "starving salary". She said the foreign teachers' salary in the university is almost the same with the Chinese teachers. That's why she did part time work on a TV program. This surprised me, 'cause I always thought that foreigners in China can earn a lot more than we do.
J / China

I don't think the average expat is overpaid. If anything, I think the Chinese workers who work in similar or even more demanding positions get underpaid. Also, I think that foreigners do have more expenses here even if they don't go to Western restaurants all the time. Expats must fly home from time to time, purchase their own health insurance if it's not provided by their workplace and let's face it, foreigners often pay more for products at markets than Chinese. I can see how the wage distribution among Chinese and Westerners can be considered racist, but at the same time we are helping this country develop and should be rewarded for it.
S / UK

I think so, but I think maybe in different fields, different professions, the situation is different. Education is a big factor.
L / China

Absolutely! At my school the Chinese teachers do way more work, work longer hours, and get far less pay than the foreign teachers who complain constantly about pretty much everything and routinely ask the teachers to help them out in their personal lives like handling shopping or other things outside of work they can’t do themselves, with no sensitivity to how cocky and insensitive they are, just treating their Chinese coworkers, who are at least as well educated and experienced, like assistants and servants instead of equals.
H / US

Photo: Marc van der Chijs

Some are, some aren't. There's a huge gap between foreigners who are sent here by the multinational companies they work for. They get villas in Pudong, international school fees for their children, and huge salaries. Then there are the English teachers who work long hours for crappy pay... So it just depends on why you're here and what you're doing. Sure, compared to Chinese doing the same jobs, foreigners get paid more.
S / UK

I thing foreigner’s salaries are quite high. Europeans and Americans have higher salaries than Chinese, many foreigners who come to China aren’t willing to do low paying jobs, which leads to there being few low salary jobs for foreigners and so their salaries pretty much have to be high.
X / China

There are some jobs that need foreigners. Not all teaching jobs, some teaching jobs are best by people who are not native speakers and have actually learned the language they are teaching and so have that experience. It’s not all English either, people are needed who speak Russian or Portuguese and there are still many signs and papers and ads that are not done correctly here because they don’t hire someone who knows the language natively, even government websites! But there are many jobs where people are hired for their (usually white) faces, not for their expertise, and compensated highly for that. But if employers weren’t willing to pay this wouldn’t be an issue.
L / UK

Special Topic: Finding and Keeping Jobs in China

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