Teacher turnover and non-pecuniary factors

Abstract

This paper studies teacher mobility using matched employee-employer panel data from Norwegian primary and lower secondary schools. The Norwegian institutional set-up with completely centralized wage setting for teachers is ideal to analyze the effect of non-pecuniary job attributes on quit decisions. We find that teachers tend to leave schools with high share of minority students and high share of students with special needs. In addition, the composition of teachers and the school size affect the propensity to quit. These results are robust across different econometric specifications and sub-samples. JEL classification: I29; J44; J45; J63

Teacher Mobility Responses to Wage Changes: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment

“…The average quit rate is 18.2 percent, which is higher than for the population of teachers in permanent positions in Norwegian primary and lower secondary schools reported by Falch and Strøm (2005) and Falch and Rønning (2007). The relatively high quit rate in the present sample seems to be partly related to the fact that experimental schools at the outset are unpopular among teachers, and partly related to the fact that the sample consists of relatively small schools.…”

Schools, ability, and the socioeconomic gradient in education choices

“…First, if high ability students with school motivated parents tend to be located in schools with high teacher quality, failure to control for teacher quality differences would likely bias the effect of family resources. The same issue arises if teachers sort themselves systematically across schools according to student characteristics, as the evidence in for example Falch and Strøm (2005) suggests. Second, school motivated parents and students may sort themselves in order to maximize positive peer group effects.…”

Exploring beginning teachers’ attrition in the Netherlands

“…From their data, they reported the following categories of reasons to leave the profession: lack of collegiality and support of beginning teachers, low student engagement or student behavioral problems in class, poor working conditions, lack of teaching resources, no opportunities for professional learning, high workload, and social isolation. Falch and Strøm (2005), analyzing Norwegian data, found that teachers were more likely to leave the profession after having taught in schools with high percentages of minority students or high percentages of students with special needs. Krieg (2006) provided evidence that quality in teaching may be related to teacher attrition; in his study, however, he only found that women performing better in teaching were less likely to quit their jobs.…”