Are teachers absent more? Examining differences in absence between K-12 teachers and other college-educated workers

ABSTRACT

While it is commonly believed that teachers take more absences than other professionals, few empirical studies have systematically investigated the prevalence of teacher absences in the U.S. This study documents the level of teacher absences and compares it with other college-educated workers. Using the Monthly Current Population Survey between the 1995 and 2019 school years, we conduct descriptive and regression analysis to estimate the level of teacher absences and the absence gaps between teachers and other college-educated workers. Additional regression analysis using data from the Leave Module of the American Time Use Survey is conducted to explain the gaps in absences between teachers and other observationally similar college-educated workers. The analysis reveals that 7% of teachers are absent at least once weekly, accounting for around 4% of their weekly working time. Compared to observationally similar college-educated workers, teachers take the same, if not less, amount of absences. Further investigation of teachers’ absence behaviour indicates that teachers report fewer demands for absences, have fewer paid leaves, and are more likely to attend work despite needing to be absent. We also find that individuals who prefer fewer absences tend to enter the teaching profession. This study adds to the emerging group of research examining the nature, determinants, and consequences of teacher absences using national-level data. Our findings imply that policymakers may be able to use more support programmes to increase teacher attendance.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher absence
• teacher characteristics
• work
• education policy

Acknowledgment

The author thanks Erdal Tekin, Seth Gershenson, Anna Amirkhanyan, Robert Shand, and Alberto Jacinto for their constructive feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. The author also thanks the journal editor, Jane Martin, and three anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Any remaining errors are the author’s own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Sometimes, employees may use sick leaves and family leaves for reasons unrelated to the purpose of these leaves because they cannot accumulate these leaves or they prefer not to.

2 Some school districts offer teachers additional vacation (annual) leaves as their teaching experience increases. For example, in North Carolina, teachers earn between 11.7-21.7 annual vacation leave days a year, based on their years of service. (Less than 5 years: 11.7; 5–10 years: 14.2; 10–15 years: 16.7; 15–20 years: 19.2; 20+ years: 21.7.) The first 10 days of annual vacation leave are already built into the school calendar; the remaining days must be taken on non-instructional school days (Policy ID 3.1.3 of the 2020 NC Benefits and Employment Policy Manual).

3 Most teachers typically work five days per week, like many other professionals in non-teaching occupations. Some school districts adopted a four-day week schedule by increasing the length of school day and have reported fewer teacher absences under the four-day school week (Thompson et al., 2021).

4 Only respondents in the 4th and 8th rotation months (CPS outgoing groups) are retained because weekly earnings are not available in other rotation months. Keeping CPS outgoing groups only reduces the sample size and should not affect the representativeness of the sample because every CPS participant is supposed to participate in all eight waves. However, if respondents with certain characteristics systematically leave the survey, then the sample could be contaminated by selection bias. Summary statistics show no differences in observables between observations included and excluded from this research, which are available upon request.

5 Occasionally, the November and December CPS may be moved one week earlier to avoid holidays.

6 If a teacher works 8 h a day, a 1.2% decrease in absences equals to around 17.62 ($17.62=0.012\ast 8\ast 180$) hours (around two working days) decrease in absence durations in 180 days working schedule. Previous research suggests that teacher absences cost around $4 billion annually in 2004 dollars (Roza, 2007). If we do not consider inflation and other changes, a 24% decrease in proportion of working time lost due to absence equals to around $960 million savings in costs in 2004 dollars.