Dual-career expatriate partners' motives for supporting international assignments: evidence from a patriarchal society

Abstract

Purpose

Extant expatriate literature largely adopts a global north/western focus and expatriate-centric approach in investigating spousal/partners’ motives for supporting expatriation. Contrastingly, this study focuses on the lived experiences of dual-career female partners from an emerging global south economy and a patriarchal society as it relates to motives for supporting a partner’s international assignment (IA) to a developed country.

Design/methodology/approach

This investigation adopts a hermeneutic interpretive phenomenology research design. Twelve career-oriented female partners from an emerging global south economy (Brazil) who supported a partner’s IA to a developed country (USA) participated in this study. The data included semi-structured interviews and field notes.

Findings

The study indicates that societal constraints, gendered career experiences and career and life stage reasons influenced women’s decision to engage in career opt out and/or interruption in support of their partners' IA. Further, patriarchal long-lasting structures and ideologies shaped women’s career experiences; women perceived IAs as a means of acquiring embodied and institutionalized cosmopolitan capital for themselves and their families in order to gain a better position in a transnational/globalized world.

Research limitations/implications

Although the sample size of this study is appropriate for the methodological choice adopted, future studies should include more participants and address different socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts.

Originality/value

This study highlights dual-career female partners' lived experiences in an emerging global south economy and a patriarchal society as it relates to motives for supporting IAs.

Citation

Nery-Kjerfve, T. and Polesello, D. (2023), "Dual-career expatriate partners' motives for supporting international assignments: evidence from a patriarchal society", Journal of Global Mobility, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JGM-03-2023-0020