How do teachers spend their time? A study on teachers' strategies of selection, optimisation, and compensation over their career cycle

• Workload-data from 1939 teachers from a representative school sample show that:
• Teachers invest their time resources differently according to their age.
• Younger and older teachers engage in fewer non-teaching tasks (selection).
• Older teachers invest free time resources in less demanding tasks (optimisation).
• Older teachers have fewer career ambitions (compensation).

In order to address all teaching-related tasks, teachers often work long hours. Effective resource allocation is, therefore, invaluable if they want to manage their workload and remain healthy. This prompted us to assess how teachers allocate their time to different tasks over their careers. Results of a study involving 1939 German teachers from a representative school sample show that beginning teachers and those at the end of their careers engage in fewer tasks (selection). The latter also save time on demanding aspects and invest the time saved in less demanding tasks instead (optimisation), and have fewer career ambitions (compensation).