There is one clear beneficiary to the practice of keeping incomes secret, and that's bosses. If they can get all their employees to keep their wages secret, they have a pretty good shot at paying some employees much less than they're worth without losing them.

Most workers know where they stand in terms of productivity, and will accept being paid less than more productive workers. But let an employee find out that less productive workers are getting paid more, and you'll have a very unhappy employee.

Only when workers can be counted on to keep their incomes secret, can bosses hope to give lousy raises and still retain valuable employees. If they can pull that off, then it gives them some extra money to either raise profits or pay out to retain employees who, although less valuable, are worth keeping if a higher wage will do the job.

Its interesting that you talk abt money disclosure. I'm Asian and work in Singapore, its quite different here. Here its not that uncommon for peers and colleagues in the same company to know what each other make.

When I joined a US MNC, during the orientation talk the HR director (an American) asked me not to disclose my salary to my colleagues and he said he's astounded that pple do that here. Of course nobody listened to him and we all have a gauge of what's the salary range. One guy even left his opened payslip on his desk on purpose because he was unhappy about his pay. It was his last day at work and he wanted to make a point.

I'm not condoning his behavior but I personally find disclosure healthy. Why hide? It gives the employer more leverage and more opportunity to screw you over.

I'm always surprised when fellow music teachers seem PROUD of how little they make. Becoming a skilled music teacher requires at least as much focused study, experience, and interning as becoming a successful psychiatrist or any other professional. I think that music teachers need to focus on strategies for making it a more profitable profession, not measure their dedication by their poor prospects for retirement and their inability to have any luxuries.

Nora,

Great points and post.

Being comfortable about our finances. much like the secret to life, lies in knowing in our minds, hearts, and souls that we have enough today. It's a matter of addressing our fears and finding contentment, peace of mind, and safety.

David

I think people simply don't want to be judged based on what they do or don't have or earn. It's unfortunate but that does happen. I'd love to be more open with people I know personally about money, but I fear they'd talk about my decisions behind my back, and that people will draw conclusions about my income or debt if they know too many specifics. I speak in generalizations when I talk about money, unless I'm on my blog. But if I had rich friends, I'd love to talk with them, learn from them, and pick their brains.