Despite the large literature on teacher labor market in the United States, only few studies have examined the career choices of former teachers and the factors that affect their decisions to return to the profession. This is surprising given that former teachers represent over a third of teachers entering the teaching workforce, according to some estimates. This paper examines the exit and re-entry decisions of former teachers using a restricted-use data from the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study (BTLS). We use a discrete time hazard model that estimates the probability that a former teacher returns to teaching in a given year conditional on not having returned in the previous year. Results suggest that female teachers are more likely to return to the teaching profession by somewhere between 10 and 12 percentage points. We also find that teachers who are highly paid are more likely to re-enter teaching.

尽管有大量关于美国教师劳动力市场的文献，但只有少数研究调查了前任教师的职业选择以及影响他们决定重返该行业的因素。根据一些估计，考虑到前任教师占进入教学队伍的教师的三分之一以上，这令人惊讶。本文使用来自“初学者纵向研究”（BTLS）的限制使用数据，对前任教师的退出和重入决策进行了研究。我们使用离散时间风险模型来估计前任教师在前一年没有返回教学的条件下在给定年份返回教学的概率。结果表明，女教师更有可能重返教师行业，高出 10 到 12 个百分点。