September 2024

The decline of the teaching profession

Summary written by: Lisa N. Huynh

The teaching profession is currently experiencing its lowest levels of employment in 50 years. Since the 1970s, this occupation’s employment has dynamically declined and increased throughout each decade. In “The rise and fall of the teaching profession: prestige, interest, preparation, and satisfaction over the last half century,” (National Bureau of Economic Research, working Paper 32386, April 2024), authors Matthew A. Kraft and Melissa Arold Lyon examine hypotheses (about education policies, school environments, and economic and sociopolitical factors) that could account for the fluctuation of interest within the teaching occupation.

The teaching profession is among one of the most prominent and essential occupations in the United States. Approximately 8 percent of the college-educated labor force, or nearly 5.4 million Americans, teaches in K–12 schools. To estimate the state of the teaching profession, the authors collected data on occupational prestige, student interest in becoming a teacher, the number of students preparing to become teachers, and job satisfaction from 1970 to 2023. The authors find that interest in the teaching profession among incoming college students, the number of prospective teachers earning a teaching license, and teachers’ overall job satisfaction have all reached historic lows between 2010 and 2023.

Kraft and Lyon find that teachers, despite substantially influencing students’ academic, social, and life outcomes, have faced difficulties in attaining a prestigious status. Teachers are viewed much less prestigiously than they were in the past, with perceived levels of prestige at 50-year lows. The occupation’s size makes it challenging to increase its prestige because the large number of teachers limits the selectivity of educator preparation programs and schools.

The authors also investigate alternative hypotheses besides those previously mentioned that may explain these declining trends of the teaching profession. They identify stagnant wages, rising college costs, weakening unions, and reduced teacher autonomy as some potential explanations. The COVID-19 pandemic has further complicated retaining and recruiting public school teachers. Another hypothesis suggests that since teaching jobs were traditionally held by women and people of color, increasing career opportunities elsewhere for these minorities decreased their interest in teaching. The civil rights movement, which helped open up higher paying occupations and other career opportunities to women and people of color, enabled these minorities to pursue nonteaching occupations that were mostly restricted to White men. Another theory suggests that insufficient school funding and poor working conditions adversely affects the attractiveness and teachers’ satisfaction of the job. The authors stress that each hypothesis has different levels of evidence and that the causes of the fall in prestige and interest is multifaceted.

Kraft and Lyon explore many possible explanations that may explain the lack of interest among the teaching occupation. As the labor market evolves, the need for educators remains unchanged. It becomes essential to address these challenges and declining numbers and ensure that educators can continue to shape the youth population throughout the upcoming decades.