Workload and Teacher Absence
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-1-2017
Publication Title
Economics of Education Review
DOI
10.1016/j.econedurev.2017.01.002
ISSN
0272-7757
Abstract
We investigate the determinants of teacher absences both within and across schools. We find that teachers generally respond to increased workload by decreasing their rate of absence. Teachers are less likely to be absent when they are teaching larger classes, have new grade assignments or have fewer years of experience. Moreover, we show that when teachers change schools, their absence rate quickly gravitates towards the mean absence rate of their new school, suggesting that school-level factors are an important determinant of absence rates. Finally, we show that the inverse relationship between workload and absence may lead researchers to underestimate the ceteris paribus effect of certain teacher inputs. We illustrate this point in the context of estimating the effect of teacher experience on test scores and show that controlling for absence rates increases the estimated returns to experience by approximately 10%.
Recommended Citation
Ost, Ben, Jeffrey C. Schiman.
2017.
"Workload and Teacher Absence."
Economics of Education Review, 57: 20-30: Elsevier.
doi: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2017.01.002
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/economics-facpubs/35
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