The wellbeing and mental health of teachers in England is similar
to those in other professions and teachers are less likely to
report feelings of ‘low self-worth’, according to new research
from academics at the UCL Institute of Education.
The paper, published in BERA’s Review of
Education and funded by the Nuffield Foundation,
looked at data from more than 60,000 teachers in England
collected over the last decade. The study, which is the first to
compare the wellbeing of such a large number of teachers to other
professional groups, found that teachers had similar levels of
anxiety, unhappiness and life satisfaction to other professional
groups.
Overall, the study found that 22% of secondary and
20% of primary teachers were unhappy, compared to figures of 21%
and 23% for demographically similar individuals working in other
professional jobs. Relatively few primary (5%) and secondary (7%)
teachers had low levels of self-worth, compared to around 11% for
other professional workers.
The situation was even brighter for headteachers, who
were found to be happier, have higher levels of life-satisfaction
and were more likely to feel that their life is worthwhile than
other occupational groups.
Co-author of the study, Professor John Jerrim (UCL
Social Research Institute) added: “A myth seems to have emerged
that teachers have worse mental health and lower levels of
wellbeing than other groups. Our study provides clear,
comprehensive evidence that this simply isn’t true. On the whole,
teachers have similar levels of wellbeing to other professional
employees.”
Co-author, Dr Sam Sims (UCL Centre of Education
Policy and Equalising Opportunities) added: “We should be
encouraging graduates into the teaching profession, and not lead
them to believe becoming a teacher is bad for your mental health.
Like all jobs, teaching has its challenges – but not the
excessively bad picture we sometimes hear about.”
Of the other professional groups included in the
study, authors and writers, graphic designers, journalists and
solicitors were found to be amongst the most anxious and with the
lowest levels of reported self-worth.
On the other hand, accountants, IT professionals and
Human Resources (HR) workers were amongst the happiest, least
anxious and with high levels of life satisfaction.
The researchers note that the data they used in the
analysis was collected before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the UK.
It is not yet known at a detailed level how this has affected the
wellbeing of different occupational groups.
Cheryl Lloyd, Education Programme Head at the
Nuffield Foundation said: “By helping us to better
understand the well-being and mental health of teachers compared
to other professions over the past decade, this research can
inform how we talk about teaching as a career path. However, it
remains important to identify the causes of work-related anxiety
and to offer mental health support to existing and new school
leaders and teachers. Indeed, as previous research from this
project has shown, anxiety has increased amongst headteachers
since lockdown.”
Researchers based their analysis upon data gathered
from 11 large-scale surveys collected over the last decade.
Within these surveys, teachers and other professionals were asked
questions about their wellbeing and mental health. This included
subjective measures, as well as some surveys about prescription
of anti-depressant medication. The study authors analysed this
large amount of data to provide the largest and most
comprehensive assessment of how the mental health and wellbeing
of teachers compares to other professional groups to
date.
Notes to editors
For more information or to speak to the researchers
involved, please contact, Rowan Walker, UCL Media Relations Team
on rowan.walker@ucl.ac.uk or
+44 (0) 7769 141 006
J.Jerrim, S Sims, H Taylor, R Allen, “How does
the mental health and wellbeing of teachers compare to other
professions? Evidence from eleven survey datasets” is the
latest working paper to be published by the UCL Institute for
Social Research and UCL Centre of Education Policy and Equalising
Opportunities. It is available here: https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rev3.3228
