LONDON — Secondary schoolteachers around the world mostly love their job, but many say they are not valued by society, according to an international survey published last week by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The Teaching and Learning International Survey questioned more than 100,000 lower secondary school teachers and about 6,500 head teachers from 34 countries on a range of issues. It followed a similar but smaller-scale survey in 2008.

Among the findings: As few as 4.9 percent of teachers in France said that society valued their work, and 5 percent in Sweden, compared with highs of 83.8 percent in Malaysia, 67.6 percent in Singapore, and 66.5 percent in Abu Dhabi and South Korea. Finland scored highest in Europe, with 58.6 percent of teachers saying they felt properly appreciated.

In the United States, the figure was roughly a third.

These figures were “shocking,” Michael Davidson, head of the schools division at the O.E.C.D., a policy consortium for developed countries that is based in Paris. If teachers felt undervalued, Mr. Davidson said at a media briefing, the best candidates would be less likely to enter the profession or stay in the job.

Yet overall job satisfaction was high, the survey found, with nine out of 10 teachers positive about their work and eight out of 10 saying they would choose teaching again, if starting anew.

An important issue highlighted by the survey was the need to ensure that the most experienced and qualified teachers were employed where they were most needed, said Julie Bélanger, one of the survey’s authors.

“We find that for a majority of surveyed countries, few attract the most experienced teachers to the most challenging schools,” Ms. Bélanger said.

“Teachers with more than five years’ teaching are less likely to work in the more challenging schools,” she said. “Challenging schools are schools where more than 30 percent of the student population comes from a low social-economic background.”

The survey provides policy makers with some basic data on the state of the teaching profession, such as gender and age. For example, it shows that most secondary school teachers are now women in all countries surveyed, except Japan.

It also shows that England has one of the youngest teaching work forces, while Italy, Bulgaria and Estonia face an imminent shortage, with large numbers of their teachers approaching retirement.