To teach or not to teach? Preferences for working conditions and the alternative career opportunities of pre-service teachers

In response to the critical shortage of teachers, this study examines the determinants of pre-service teachers' career preferences. We answer the call for more theoretical diversity by employing expected utility theory to identify gaps in earlier literature. Subsequently, we design discrete choice experiments to rigorously quantify Flemish pre-service teachers' preferences and measure beliefs concerning various working conditions in the teaching field compared to alternative careers. Our findings reveal that salary, workload and career opportunities are at least as important to the average pre-service teachers as being able to work with children. Additionally, the best-performing pre-service teachers particularly value career advancement opportunities and curricular autonomy. Accountability policies that reduce teachers' curricular autonomy could therefore harm educational quality by reducing the supply of high-quality teachers. Finally, pre-service teachers' perceptions of working conditions as a teacher are highly heterogeneous, and this heterogeneity plays a decisive role in their career preferences.