Recruiting and Retaining Teachers in the UK: An Analysis of Graduate Occupation Choice from the 1960s to the 1990s

This paper examines the market for teachers in the UK from 1960 to 2002 using six graduate cohort data-sets. We find that, while there is no strong evidence that teachers are underpaid, the relative wages in teaching compared with alternative professions have a significant impact on the likelihood of graduates choosing to teach. This wage effect is strongest at times of low relative teachers' wages, or following a period of decline in those wages. It is also strongest for those individuals who have more recently graduated, and for men. Copyright (c) The London School of Economics and Political Science 2006.