Stress in Boom Times: Understanding Teachers’ Economic Anxiety in a High-Cost Urban District

Abstract

Despite growing concern over teachers’ ability to live comfortably where they work, we know little about the systematic relationship between affordability and teachers’ well-being, particularly in high-cost urban areas. We use novel survey data from San Francisco Unified School District to identify the patterns and prevalence of economic anxiety among teachers and assess how this anxiety predicts teachers’ attitudes, behaviors, and turnover. We find that San Francisco teachers have far higher levels of economic anxiety on average than a national sample of employed adults, and that younger teachers are particularly financially anxious. Furthermore, such anxiety predicts measures of job performance and teacher retention—economically anxious teachers tend to have more negative attitudes about their jobs, have worse attendance, and are 50% more likely to depart the district within 2 years after the survey.

Factors Contributing to Anxiety and Depression among Teachers Through A Systematic Literature Review

“…Female teachers face twice as much anxiety compared to their male counterparts (Lizana & Lera, 2022). This is because they had to balance between their family affairs and work affairs (Desouky & Allam, 2017;Atabek et al, 2019;Budyawati & Utami, 2019;Dizon-Ross et al, 2019;Ng et al, 2019;Othman & Sivasubramaniam, 2019;Bete et al, 2020;Li et al, 2020;Ratanasiripong et al, 2020;Ozamiz et al, 2021;Santamaría et al, 2021;Lizana et al, 2021;Wakui et al, 2021;Yoo et al, 2021;Gawrych et al, 2022;Spadafora et al, 2022). Jakubowski & Sitko (2021) in their study found that female teachers in Poland are more likely to have anxiety and depression as the culture of the country still associates managing household to be a full responsibility of a female.…”

“…Therefore, an abundance is tasks accumulated by teachers leads them to be constant under pressure from many parties ( Furthermore, the subfactor of teaching knowledge is also closely related to the teacher's tendency to anxiety and depression. This is because teachers who are incompetent in pedagogy and content knowledge will have low self-esteem making them to be living in fear that causes anxiety and depression in themselves (Desouky & Allam, 2017;Ramirez et al, 2018;Alvites et al, 2019;Dizon-Ross et al, 2019;Ganley et al, 2019;Oguzhan et al, 2019;Thomas & Sari, 2019;Othman & Sivasubramaniam, 2019;Li et al, 2020;Syuhada & Retnawati 2020;Bete et al, 2020;Genoud & Waroux, 2021;Pressley et al, 2021;Wakui et al, 2021;Gawrych et al, 2022;Spadafora et al, 2022).…”

Are Homegrown Teachers Who Graduate From Urban Districts More Racially Diverse, More Effective, and Less Likely to Exit Teaching?

“…For instance, while gentrification and the associated effects have brought significant changes to many central city neighborhoods, the effects have often been quite varied (Pearman, 2019). Most relevant to this study is the extent to which increased housing prices and loss of affordability displaces individuals who grew up attending district schools but have little potential of becoming teachers in the district because of a loss of affordability (Dizon-Ross et al, 2019).…”

Stress Test: Examining the Evolution of Teachers' Mental Health Over Time

“…Rarely does this literature draw direct comparisons between teachers and observationally similar professionals in other lines of work, which raises the question of whether teaching uniquely affects (or selects on) the mental health of its professional workforce. Moreover, changes in both policies governing public schools and the relative prestige and real wages of teaching over time (Allegretto & Mishel, 2016;Dizon-Ross, Loeb, Penner, & Rochmes, 2018) suggests that teachers' mental health, relative to their peers, might have changed over time.…”

“…Recent evidence from San Francisco suggests teachers facing high costs of living report more economic anxiety than teachers elsewhere, which fuels negative views of teaching and higher rates of absence (Dizon-Ross et al, 2018). Indeed, a variety of policy changes in the United States, at the state and federal level, increased the credentials required for teaching and added a variety of accountability measures tied to student achievement (Dee & Jacob, 2010;Firestone, 2014).…”