Absence, substitutability and productivity: Evidence from teachers

Abstract

Teacher absence is a widespread phenomenon, but little is known about its effects on teacher productivity and schools’ strategies to cope with this temporary disruptive event through substitute teachers. Using a unique French administrative dataset matching, for each absence spell, each missing secondary school teacher to her substitute teacher, I find that, on average, teacher absence reduces pupil test scores by around 0.40% of a standard deviation. On average, substitute teachers are unable to mitigate this negative effect. However, there is substantial heterogeneity depending on the type of substitute teacher: certified substitute teachers are able to compensate for up to 25% of this negative impact, while non-certified substitute teachers have no statistically significant effect.