Teacher attrition: Human capital and terms of employment – Do they matter?

Abstract

Addressing Sorensen and Tuma's resource–reward theory, we explored teacher attrition from an economic perspective. The study aimed to explore the extent to which teachers' resources and terms of employment correlate with attrition behavior. In a sample of 10,340 Israeli K-12 teachers it was found that many beginning teachers who left the profession were relatively highly educated. Although the literature stresses teachers’ intrinsic motivation for choosing their career, the findings, in line with earlier empirical studies, suggest that job rewards do play an important role in teachers' career decisions. Moreover, the current findings suggest that at lower salary levels, the rewards-attrition association differs by teacher higher-education level. That is, the attrition rates of highly-educated teachers drop more sharply as salary increases, as expected by the theory. Some explanations and policy recommendations are made.