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Another JGM BitBlog: Dual-career partner's voices and experiences

  • 1.  Another JGM BitBlog: Dual-career partner's voices and experiences

    Posted 8 days ago

    The JGM BitBlog: Dual-career partner's voices and experiences to engage in career opt-out and/or interruption in support of a partner's international assignment

    Tania Nery-Kjerfve, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States

    Daiane Polesello, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, United States

    Expatriate research mostly adopts a global north/Western focus and expatriate-centric approach and provides limited information regarding spouses/partners' motives in supporting international assignments (IAs). Partners' voices and experiences, particularly those originating from the global south, are not frequently highlighted in expatriate literature, despite the recognized influence of partners in the decision-making process of employees in accepting IAs and frequent calls for cross-cultural and gender studies in expatriation. At the same time, recent literature has provided evidence that career-oriented women's experiences of discrimination and limited professional opportunities may be a precursor to self-expatriation. In societies where long-lasting patriarchal structures still occur, women face societal and organizational barriers to career progression. They may seek expatriation to compensate for unfair treatment in domestic organizations and as a means of gaining opportunities for professional advancement.

    To develop a broad understanding of career-oriented partners' motives to support IAs, this study investigated the lived experiences of dual-career partners originating from a home country (Brazil) marked by strong gender inequality and survival of long-lasting patriarchal structures as it relates to its influences to support a partner's IA to a developed host country (United States). To provide an individual-level in-depth investigation of a person-in-environment, this investigation adopted a hermeneutic interpretive phenomenology study design. As an initial lens of inquiry, this study adopted the framework of patriarchy. The literature review informing this study addressed 1. women's work conditions in Brazil, paying particular attention to macro (societal-level), meso (organizational-level), and micro (family- level) structures that shaped women's career experiences, and 2. extant literature on dual-career partners' motives to engage in career opt-out and/or interruption to support a partner IA. Twelve highly educated career-oriented dual-career partners who engaged in career opt-out and/or interruption in support of a partner's IA participated in the investigation. Data included semi-structured interviews (primarily) and field notes.

    The findings of this study indicated that societal constraints, gendered career experiences - i.e., low-quality jobs, low wages, temporary contracts, and career and life cycle reasons influenced dual-career partners' decision to engage in career opt-out and/or interruption in support of a partner IA. Women's unequal career experiences and limited advancement opportunities

    eroded their affective commitment to their careers over time. Women supported the partner's IA in response to contextual constraints and relational demands. To find balance in their lives and to invest in cultural cosmopolitan capital acquisition as a means of expanding career opportunities upon repatriation or further expatriation. In the Brazilian context, this form of capital arguably plays a superior role in elevating women from a position of gender subordination to a superior position of better-educated individuals, thus favorably positioning women in the labor market.

    To read this article, please see the Journal of Global Mobility publication:

    Nery-Kjerfve, T. and Polesello, D. (2024), "Dual-career expatriate partners' motives for supporting international assignments: evidence from a patriarchal society", Journal of Global Mobility, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 241-264. https://doi.org/10.1108/JGM-03-2023-0020" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://doi.org/10.1108/JGM-03-2023-0020



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    Professor Jan Selmer, Ph.D.
    Founding Editor-in-Chief
    Journal of Global Mobility (JGM)
    Department of Management, Aarhus University
    E-mail: selmer@mgmt.au.dk
    Twitter: @JanSelmer_JGM
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