Teacher stress is widespread, but it does not look the same in every classroom or education system. Recent U.S. surveys found frequent stress, overwhelming work, long hours, and substantial exposure to student behavior challenges. International TALIS results add context on workload, health, school setting, age, and gender.
Contents
- How common are teacher stress and burnout?
- Teacher workload, hours, and work-life balance
- Classroom conditions linked with teacher stress
- Reported sources of job-related stress
- Teacher stress, health, and well-being
- Differences by teacher and school context
How common are teacher stress and burnout?
The most recent U.S. public K–12 teacher data show that stress is a normal part of the job for many educators. In a Pew Research Center survey conducted from October 17 to November 14, 2023, 77% said their job was frequently stressful and 68% said it was frequently overwhelming. These measures describe teachers’ reported experience during that period, rather than a clinical diagnosis. (Pew Research Center, “What’s It Like To Be a Teacher in America Today?”)
RAND’s January 2024 State of the American Teacher survey used different measures. It found that 59% of U.S. K–12 public school teachers reported frequent job-related stress, while 60% met RAND’s survey measure of burnout. A smaller, but still important, 22% said they had difficulty coping with job-related stress. Because Pew and RAND used different questions and survey designs, their percentages should not be treated as a single trend line. (RAND, “Teacher Well-Being and Intentions to Leave in 2024”)
International results also vary considerably. In TALIS 2024, 19% of lower-secondary teachers across participating education systems reported experiencing stress “a lot” in their work. The share exceeded 30% in Australia, Bahrain, Costa Rica, Malta, New Zealand, and Alberta, Canada, while it was below 5% in Albania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Viet Nam. The comparison covers education systems, not one worldwide teacher population. (OECD, “Thriving in teaching: Results from TALIS 2024”)
For historical context, a 2021 survey of public- and private-school teachers during the COVID-19 era found that 72% felt very or extremely stressed. That survey reflects an exceptional period and should not be read as a current estimate of teacher stress. (CDC, “Teachers Feeling the Burden of COVID-19”)
Teacher workload, hours, and work-life balance
Time pressure is one of the clearest patterns in the U.S. data. In the 2023 Pew survey, 84% of U.S. public K–12 teachers said their regular work hours did not provide enough time for grading, lesson planning, paperwork, and work email. Among teachers who lacked enough regular time, 81% identified having too much work as a major reason. Overall, 54% said balancing work and personal life was very or somewhat difficult. (Pew Research Center, “What’s It Like To Be a Teacher in America Today?”)
The work-life balance result differed by gender: 57% of female teachers said balancing work and personal life was difficult, compared with 43% of male teachers. This is a reported difference in the survey, not an explanation for why the difference occurred.
RAND’s January 2024 results put reported weekly work at 53 hours for U.S. public K–12 teachers, compared with 44 hours for comparable working adults. Teachers reported an average of 15 hours per week outside their contracts. These figures help show why scheduled school hours alone do not describe the full workload. (RAND, “Teacher Well-Being and Intentions to Leave in 2024”)
TALIS provides a different international workload reference. In TALIS 2018, lower-secondary teachers across OECD-31 reported 38.8 total work hours per week on average, including 20.8 teaching hours and 6.5 hours for individual lesson planning or preparation. TALIS 2024 teachers reported about 23 teaching hours and 7 lesson-preparation hours per week on average across participating education systems. The two TALIS releases use different survey years and should be compared cautiously.
| Workload measure | Reported result | Period and population |
|---|---|---|
| Total weekly work | 53 hours | U.S. public K–12 teachers, January 2024 |
| Work outside contract | 15 hours weekly | U.S. public K–12 teachers, January 2024 |
| Total weekly work | 38.8 hours | OECD-31 lower-secondary teachers, TALIS 2018 |
| Teaching time | 20.8 hours weekly | OECD-31 lower-secondary teachers, TALIS 2018 |
| Lesson preparation | 6.5 hours weekly | OECD-31 lower-secondary teachers, TALIS 2018 |
| Teaching time | About 23 hours weekly | TALIS 2024 participating systems |
| Lesson preparation | 7 hours weekly | TALIS 2024 participating systems |
Classroom conditions linked with teacher stress
Classroom management demands are closely connected to the daily experience of teaching. In the Pew survey, 47% of U.S. public K–12 teachers said students showing little or no interest in learning were a major classroom problem. The share rose to 58% among high-school teachers. Student cellphone distraction was a major problem for 33% of all public K–12 teachers and for 72% of high-school teachers. (Pew Research Center, “What’s It Like To Be a Teacher in America Today?”)
Teachers also reported direct experiences of harmful behavior. Sixty-eight percent said they had experienced verbal abuse from a student, and 21% said student verbal abuse occurred at least a few times a month. Forty percent said a student had been violent toward them, while 9% said student violence occurred at least a few times a month. These results distinguish having experienced an event from experiencing it regularly.
Behavioral and pastoral responsibilities extend beyond discipline. Fifty-eight percent of U.S. public K–12 teachers said they addressed behavioral issues in class every day. Twenty-eight percent said they helped students with mental-health challenges every day. Those figures describe recurring responsibilities that can add to the demands of instruction and lesson preparation.
Reported sources of job-related stress
TALIS 2018 identifies several work conditions that lower-secondary teachers across OECD-31 reported as stress sources “quite a bit” or “a lot.” Administrative work was the most frequently reported item in this set: 49% named too much administrative work. Other major sources included being held responsible for student achievement at 44%, keeping up with changing authority requirements at 41%, and too much marking at 41%. (OECD, “What TALIS 2018 implies for policy”)
Instructional workload also appeared in the results. Thirty-three percent reported too much lesson preparation as a stress source “quite a bit” or “a lot,” 28% reported too many lessons to teach, and 25% reported extra duties caused by absent teachers. Classroom discipline was reported by 38%, while 13% reported student intimidation or verbal abuse at those stress levels.
The pattern suggests that teacher stress is not explained by one task. Paperwork, accountability, preparation, marking, cover duties, and classroom management each appear as distinct reported pressures. The percentages refer to lower-secondary teachers across OECD-31 in TALIS 2018, so they should not be applied directly to every grade level or country.
Teacher stress, health, and well-being
TALIS results show that stress and health effects are related but not identical measures. In TALIS 2018, 7% of lower-secondary teachers across OECD-31 said their job negatively affected their mental health “a lot,” and 6% said it negatively affected their physical health “a lot.” Six percent also said their work never left room for their personal life. (OECD, “What TALIS 2018 implies for policy”)
In TALIS 2024 participating education systems, 10% of lower-secondary teachers said their job negatively affected their mental health “a lot,” and 8% said it negatively affected their physical health “a lot.” Eleven percent said their work left them time for personal life “a lot.” The wording and participating systems differ from TALIS 2018, so these figures are best read as separate snapshots rather than a precise change estimate. (OECD, “Thriving in teaching: Results from TALIS 2024”)
Other responsibilities can become stressors as well. In TALIS 2018, 34% reported addressing parent or guardian concerns as a stress source “quite a bit” or “a lot,” and 31% reported modifying lessons for students with special needs at those levels. During the COVID-19-era 2021 survey, 57% of surveyed teachers said they never or almost never had satisfactory work-family balance. That result belongs to the pandemic-era context and is not a current general estimate.
Differences by teacher and school context
Teacher stress varies across groups. TALIS 2024 found that 21% of female lower-secondary teachers reported stress “a lot,” compared with 15% of male teachers. The share among teachers aged 50 or older was 6 percentage points lower than among teachers under age 30. These are group differences in reported stress, not evidence that age or gender alone causes stress. (OECD, “Thriving in teaching: Results from TALIS 2024”)
School context also matters in the reported results. In the United States, teachers in publicly managed schools reported high work-related stress at a rate 13–17 percentage points higher than teachers in privately managed schools in TALIS 2024. Teachers in disadvantaged U.S. schools reported high work-related stress at a rate 14–19 percentage points higher than teachers in advantaged schools. In New Zealand, the disadvantaged-versus-advantaged school gap for teachers reporting stress “a lot” was 17 percentage points. (OECD, “Thriving in teaching: Results from TALIS 2024”)
Urban and rural differences are not uniform across places. In Colombia, urban teachers reported stress “a lot” 13 percentage points more often than rural teachers in TALIS 2018. This country-specific result should not be generalized to all education systems.
The retention indicators from the 2023 Pew survey show how these pressures can affect the profession’s outlook. Fifty-two percent of U.S. public K–12 teachers said they would not advise a young person starting out today to become a teacher. Among teachers who did not plan to retire or stop working, 29% said they were at least somewhat likely to look for a new job in 2023–24. Of those likely to look, 40% said they would look outside education, while 18% said they would seek a teaching job at another public K–12 school. (Pew Research Center, “What’s It Like To Be a Teacher in America Today?”)