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Day care teacher
- Median pay: $24,200
- % who say their job is stressful: 60.5%
Working with two-to-six-year olds in public schools or daycare centers, these teachers can put in up to 12-hour days.
"Young children are demanding physically, mentally and emotionally," said Debora Wisneski, President of the Association for Childhood Education International.
But the most stressful part is "the precariousness of the job market."
While the long-term outlook for the profession is strong, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the current high unemployment rate means more moms and dads are staying home and taking care of the kids themselves.
Methodology: Starting from a database of more than 9,000 jobs, PayScale used data from over 120,000 respondents who rated their jobs for quality of life factors. The top 15 were selected based on the national median pay for workers with at least five or seven years' experience and the percent of workers surveyed who said their jobs were "fairly stressful" or "extremely stressful." They were then ranked in order of pay, lowest to highest. Only jobs with median pay less than $50,000 were eligible., and only one job per "job family" was included. PayScale conducted the survey between August 2010 and August 2012.
- Last updated March 07 2013 08:59 AM ET
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