Leaving Teaching in the French-Speaking Community of Belgium: A Duration Analysis

Abstract

This paper aims toward a better understanding of the factors influencing the decision of young graduates who entered teaching to stay in that profession. The field of research covers secondary education teachers in the French-speaking community of Belgium. The data analyzed comes from an administrative database containing historical records of 50 000 individuals who started teaching between 1973 and 1996. The analysis is carried out assuming a proportional hazard model and using the discrete-time method initiated by Prentice and Gloeckler ( Biometrics , 1978, 34, pp. 57-67). One of the main results is that the risk of exit is dramatically more important during the first periods of employment. The fact that this risk tends also to increase over time suggests that the dropout rate among young recruits is higher now than it was in the past. Location and labour market conditions seem to be of little impact.The risk of exit is the same in rural and urban areas and across provinces wherein unemployment rates vary dramatically. Finally, the significant deterioration of pay conditions (in relative terms) since the mid-1980s has had no significant impact on the risk of exit. Of greater importance are supply-side (organizational) elements such as the level of centralization of recruitment decisions or the level of asymmetry between tenure and non-tenure personnel regarding job protection, access to full-time position, etc.