Teaching motivations in Hong Kong: Who will choose teaching as a fallback career in a stringent job market?

• Teaching motivations in Hong Kong are similar to other countries.
• Two types of fallback career motivation are identified.
• Only one type of fallback career motivation has maladaptive correlates.
• Altruistic and intrinsic motivations reduce negativity of fallback career motivation.

This study investigated whether teaching motivations and their outcomes in Hong Kong with a teacher surplus are similar to countries with teacher shortage. Results from 132 pre-service teachers showed altruistic and intrinsic motivations were the most important teaching motivations and they correlated positively with planned teaching engagement. Unlike other studies, two types of fallback career motivation were identified, but only one correlated negatively with planned engagement. Analysis of interview data revealed that the maladaptive effects of fallback career motivation could be reduced by altruistic and intrinsic subject matter motivations. The heuristic value to examine the complete motivation profile was discussed.