Career changers in teaching jobs: A case study based on the Swiss vocational education system

Arbeitspapier

This study investigates the determinants and motives of professionals who change career to vocational teaching. The framework for this study is the Swiss vocational education system, which requires that teachers of vocational subjects must have a prior career in that specific field. Thus, to work in teaching, every vocational teacher has to change his or her initial career. This paper focuses on the relevance of monetary motives for changing a career to teaching. Using a unique data set of trainee teachers, we show that professionals who change their careers to teaching earned on average more in their first career than comparable workers in the same occupation. Our findings additionally demonstrate that the average career changer still expects to earn significantly more as a teacher than in the former career. However, the study shows substantial heterogeneity and a zero wage elasticity of the teacher supply, suggesting that non-monetary motives are more relevant for career change than monetary factors.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 5806

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions ; Education and Research Institutions: General ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Public Sector Labor Markets ; Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
• Subject: career change ; occupational change ; rate of return to education ; wage differentials ; teacher wages ; vocational education and training

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Hof, Stefanie ; Strupler, Mirjam ; Wolter, Stefan C.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2011

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/51907
• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-20110629941
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET