Teaching in Sweden is undergoing a vocational crisis in terms of facing increasing teacher shortages reflected by low examination rates and increasing teacher attrition rates (Adermon & Laun, 2018). These shortages are particularly evident in elementary-year schooling. Reports by the Swedish National Agency for Education suggested that there will be a shortfall of ~80 000 teachers in 2031 (Skolverket, 2017). This shortfall is driven by demographic factors such as projected increases in the student population; low teacher education examination rates; and a high proportion of teachers nearing retirement-age (European Commission, 2019). Another contributing factor is the inability to retain teachers, illustrated by teachers’ turnover and attrition rates (Ingersoll, 2001).

Why teachers choose to leave their profession has been widely studied in the literature. Individual factors associated with attrition have provided an insight into which teachers are more likely to leave the profession whereas contextual factors have provided an insight into why these teachers choose to leave the profession. The results point to teacher attrition being higher among younger, less experienced teachers who report low levels of self-efficacy and job satisfaction (Borman & Dowling, 2008). Moreover, studies have consistently shown how challenging work environments, characterized by high job demands and low job resources, causes teacher burnout and exhaustion and subsequently contributes to teachers’ intention to leave the profession (Chambers Mack et al., 2019). In contrast to what makes teachers want to leave the profession, less focus has been placed on understanding the vast majority of teachers who choose to remain in the profession despite being subjected to the same occupational challenges (Sell, 2019). Refocusing the attention towards what can help teachers stay in the profession can provide valuable information about nuanced organizational practices that can safeguard teachers work-related health and facilitate teacher retention. This is important as better teacher retention can contribute towards addressing teacher shortages in Sweden (Lindqvist & Nordänger, 2016). Studies in the teacher retention literature have attempted to identify factors that can facilitate teachers’ willingness to remain in the profession. Some studies have indicated that contextual factors can facilitate teacher retention by providing teachers with a more advantageous work environment, characterized by horizontal and vertical support processes, that buffers against teachers’ job demands and poor work-related health outcomes (McCarthy, Lambert, & Reiser, 2014).

The study that will be presented at the conference is part of a doctoral research project and aims to contribute to the teacher retention literature by exploring factors that are associated with teachers’ intention to remain in the profession in Sweden. By doing so, this study aims to provide an insight into protective aspects of teachers’ psycho-social work environment that can facilitate teacher retention.

The study included 5903 elementary-year teachers (ISCED level 1-2) from 25 municipalities in Sweden. In line with Kelchtermans (2017), teacher retention was defined as keeping qualified teachers in the profession. As such, we restricted our sample to qualified elementary-year teachers working in public schools as reports have shown teacher attrition to be more pronounced in this teacher group (Skolverket, 2017). The sample consisted of 80% females (n=4706) and 20% males (n=1178), with a mean age of 45.9 years (s.d 10.7 years). In terms of experience level, 25% of the teachers included are novice teachers (experience ≤ 5 years) and 75% possess 5 or more years of experience. Moreover, 39% of teachers had worked at their current school for 5 years or less and 61% had been at their school for 5 years or more. The study sample was representative of the Swedish teacher population with regards to gender ratio, age, certification-level and geographical spread. Teachers’ perception of their psycho-social work environment was captured using the General Nordic Questionnaire for Psychological and Social Factors at Work (QPS-Nordic; Dallner et al. 2000). The survey also assessed: teachers’ health state using the EQ-5D-3L (EuroQol Research Foundation., 2018); exhaustion using the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI; Demerouti, Bakker, Vardakou, & Kantas, 2003); and work motivation (Sjöberg & Lind, 1994). It also included a new unvalidated scale assessing school quality. Teachers’ intention to remain in the profession was assessed using item 6 from the Work Ability Index (WAI; Lundin, Leijon, Vaez, Hallgren, & Torgen, 2017). The QPS-Nordic survey groups items into three variable-levels: individual-level factors, work-level factors, and socio-organizational-level factors. The individual-level factors assessed work motivation, organizational commitment, mastery, work-life interference, health-related quality of life and exhaustion. The work-level factors assessed quantitative demands, learning demands, decisional demands, role clarity, role conflict, decision authority, control of work pace, and school quality. The socio-organizational-level factors assessed managerial support, support from colleagues, social climate and employee-focused climate. The Cronbach alpha for the scales ranged from 0.50 to 0.83 for individual-level factors; 0.57 to 0.86 for work-level factors; and 0.77 to 0.83 for socio-organizational level factors. Separate multiple regression analyses using backward selection were conducted to explore the relationship between individual-level factors (model 1), work-level factors (model 2), and socio-organizational-level factors (model 3) with teacher retention. The significant predictors at each factor-level were then entered into a three-stage hierarchical regression model (model 4) to investigate the contribution of each factor-level on teachers' intention to remain in the profession.

The final model explained 20.2% of the variance in teachers’ intention to remain in the profession. The findings showed that teacher retention was mainly explained by their perceived health state (low exhaustion and health-related quality of life), and only to a small extent by contextual factors. Support from colleagues was the only contextual factor that displayed a significant association with teachers’ intention to remain. The strong association observed between teachers’ health-state and retention can partly be explained by the operationalisation of the outcome variable which assessed intention to remain in the profession based on one's perceived health. However, this finding is in line with the theoretical framework provided by the Job Demands-Resource Model and previous studies suggesting that safeguarding teachers work-related health can facilitate teacher retention (McCarthy et al., 2014). The main implication of this study is highlighting teachers’ perceived health state for their retention. In Sweden all schools are required to actively work with and continuously monitor their systematic work environment management to maintain and encourage health at work. In addition to previous studies emphasizing the benefits of fostering a healthy work environment to minimize occupational psychosocial hazards and work-related ill-health, our results extend this by suggesting that healthy work environments can also play a role in facilitating teacher retention in Sweden.

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