Ökonomischer Workshop mit Dr. Ingo Isphording, MPI Bonn

Abstract: 

Teacher mental health is a growing societal and economic concern with potential repercussions for educational quality and student outcomes. Using population-wide administrative data from Denmark, we document increasingly elevated rates of mental health care utilization among primary school teachers. These elevated rates are fully explained by the specific occupational content of teaching, such as interpersonal demands, conflict intensity, and emotional labor. Second, we document large differences in mental health outcomes across schools: rates of sickness absence and mental health specialist contact are roughly twice as high in schools at the 90th percentile as in those at the 10th percentile. Exploiting teacher mobility between schools, we show that this variation reflects a causal effect of schools: incoming teachers' health adjusts to new environments within the first years. Observable school characteristics do not predict observed differences, and estimates based on within-teacher variation in assigned student cohorts do not reveal a causal link between these characteristics and teacher mental health. Thus, we conclude that unobserved aspects of workplace quality, including leadership and organizational climate, may play a central role.