Navigating Teacher Attrition : Exploring Teacher Mobility Drivers in Sweden Using Attitudes to School Survey Data

Understanding the drivers of teacher mobility is vital for maintaining workforce stability and educational equity in Sweden’s rapidly evolving school system. This thesis examines how both objective workplace conditions and teachers’ subjective well‐being shape two distinct forms of career mobility—inter‐school transfers and exits from the profession—using a longitudinal, nationally representative sample of 5,873 compulsory and upper‐secondary teachers drawn from four waves (2006, 2009, 2012, 2018) of the Swedish National Agency for Education’s Attitudes to School survey. First, I apply domain‐specific principal component analysis to reduce dozens of correlate survey items into robust latent indices, yielding parsimonious measures of five well‐being factors (overall satisfaction, autonomy, competence, effectiveness, trust) and three workplace‐condition factors (resource adequacy, classroom environment, school climate). These component scores serve as predictors in two parallel generalized additive models with spline‐augmented terms for age and perceived authority, allowing for the flexible, data‐driven modeling of non‐linear career‐stage effects. Results reveal that material conditions—especially well‐prioritized resources, supportive school climate, and longer same‐school tenure—are the strongest deterrents of planned school transfers, whereas intrinsic well‐being factors—most notably meaningfulness, satisfaction, and stress—dominate intentions to leave teaching altogether. Employment in independent (voucher‐funded) schools significantly raises transfer intentions but not attrition. The flexible age spline uncovers an early‐career “risk window” (ages 20–28) and a “late‐career cushion” (post‐38) for both mobility pathways, and perceived authority exhibits a U‐shaped relationship with transfer risk, highlighting the importance of balanced school governance. By disentangling transfer versus attrition pathways and deploying a longitudinal GAM framework, this study offers novel empirical and conceptual insights into teacher mobility in Sweden. It underscores the need for targeted retention strategies—improving school-level resources and climate to discourage transfers, and strengthening teachers’ sense of meaningfulness and stress management to curb exits—and provides a methodological template for future, cross‐national investigations into non‐linear career‐stage dynamics.