Teachers are not particularly old (or young)

The median teacher is 43 years old

The typical teacher in America is 43 years old. Compared to other workers, they are neither particularly old nor particularly young.

Thanks to the work of Richard Ingersoll, we know that the teacher workforce has become older (and “grayer”) over time.

But how does it compare to other professions? I didn’t know quite what to expect when I started poking around the BLS data on the age of employees across occupations.

AI result when I searched for “old and young teachers”

First some background on the data: The BLS captures information on almost 600 occupations (including some bigger and smaller sub-categories) as of 2023. For my interests here, I focused on the categories identified as teaching assistants, preschool and kindergarten teachers, special education teachers, elementary and middle school teachers, and secondary school teachers. All categories represent a national sample including both public and private school employees.

With that throat clearing out of the way, here’s what I found:

Teaching assistants and preschool and kindergartner teachers are on the younger side, with median ages around 38, well below the national median of 42. Teaching assistants are particularly young, with over 41% of them under the age of 35.

In contrast, the median age of special education teachers (43), elementary and middle school teachers (43), and secondary school teachers (44) were all above the national median. Teachers have similar age profiles as private detectives, social workers, human resources managers, insurance sales agents, and dental hygienists. Teachers also tend to be a little older than police officers and registered nurses and a little younger than accountants or personal financial advisors.

This was mainly just pure curiosity on my part, but I do think it’s relevant the next time you hear someone forecasting a surge of retirements that could destabilize the teacher ranks. Compared to other occupations, teachers are neither particularly young nor particularly old.