The draw of home: How does teacher’s initial job placement relate to teacher mobility in rural China?

Across the world, certain schools struggle to recruit and retain qualified teachers. This study explores teacher mobility across schools in rural China. Using a dataset from the Gansu Survey of Children and Families, this study investigates how teacher’s initial job placement relates to teacher mobility across schools. The findings show that non-local teachers whose initial placements were not in their hometowns were more likely to switch schools. Non-local teachers were also more likely to move for family reasons, compared to moving for personal development or due to involuntary transfer by the local government. The findings suggest that localized recruitment and deployment of teachers can be valuable for reducing teacher mobility rate and retaining teachers in hard-to-staff areas.