This article originally appeared in Issue 1 2022 of Mobility magazine. Interviewee titles and organizations were current at the time of writing but may have since changed.
What if you want to hire a talented individual from abroad, and it turns out that they have a career partner? Or if you’re going to develop a staff member’s career through an international assignment, yet the staff member happens to be part of a dual-career couple?
Moving staff with families to another country is challenging enough. Add two careers to that, and mobility becomes even more complex. It’s a tall order for employers to attract and retain talent in this situation.
Fortunately, there is a win-win solution: offering support for the successful careers—not just jobs—of couples who move together.
International career couples (ICCs) are a growing phenomenon thanks to three mutually
reinforcing trends: international careers, dual careers, and women’s careers. Globalization and accompanying initiatives such as international student exchanges allow people to move more easily across borders. Organization-sponsored expatriates are still predominantly male. However, due to the rise in dual careers in the developed world, fewer men have a partner willing to put a career on hold to follow them.
At the same time, the number of female expatriates is taking off due to women’s career development, and women leaders more often than men are in dual-career relationships. More women moving abroad can mean more dual-career couples moving abroad.
A Critical Window
It can be easier for a partner to find a job in some locations because of the local labor market or greater facility for obtaining a work permit. Finding formal employment before relocating to a new location may not be necessary.
However, many couples fail to combine family life, two careers, and international mobility. They then tend to compromise one partner’s career to save the relationship or sacrifice global mobility to save the career. Our research shows that the first five years of the partnership are the critical window for establishing a foundation for successful outcomes on this issue.
A dual-career couple is often misperceived as two formally employed partners. However, the long-term career success of the accompanying partner does not always depend on formal employment. While that may be the case during most of a couple’s lifetime, there are also periods during which one partner develops their career through other means, including self-employment. This is fine if it fits the long-term plan.
A shared vision is one of the critical success factors for ICCs. That vision articulates long-term career and mobility goals and the fulfillment of a life purpose, which may combine career and familial aims.
This orientation toward what matters allows the ICC to make significant, future-oriented decisions with a strategic focus, rather than merely drawing from past experiences and responding to short-term demands.
Focusing on the Career—Not Just the Job
Self-employment in the new location is only one of the possible solutions to the international mobility of dual-career couples. Because couples can lack a vision and employers tend to think in terms of jobs instead of careers, there is often a fixation on getting the partner a job to make the couple mobile. ICCs become more mobile if the two partners determine their career goals as conjoined entities rather than as separate individuals.
That was the case for Silje and Tim, a Scandinavian couple who have been together for
almost 20 years and have two children. Silje and Tim hadn’t thought of an international move until Silje’s employer, a food science company, came up with an opportunity in Asia. Silje was offered the job of regional HR director based in Singapore. Theirs is the case of a classic expatriate couple, meaning that one of the two is moved abroad by their employer.
As a couple, Silje and Tim’s guiding principle of “all for one and one for all” meant that important decisions are always family decisions. Staying flexible by not being chained to a financial commitment or an employer is fundamental. After seeing that moving to Asia would fit this overarching purpose, they said yes to the offer.
It was an important and therefore not easy decision. “When the opportunity to move to Singapore came up, we talked,” Silje says. “We came quickly to a positive decision. Yet I was conscious of the need for Tim to have a job. I felt the pressure of responsibility for Tim and the realization that I would have to spend a lot of time away in the new job.” After moving to Singapore, Tim continued his career, landing a role as a business process manager in the oil and gas industry.
Setting Each Other Up for Success
Several factors have contributed to the successful move of this dual-career couple. First, Silje and Tim develop not only their individual careers but also their partner’s. With complementary skills, they help each other with the challenges they face at work on an ongoing basis. Silje, for example, relies on Tim’s capabilities to prepare important presentations. On other occasions, Silje has been using her HR coaching skills to help Tim through difficult periods at work.
Second, they are clear about who they are. Even before moving, Silje and Tim consciously constructed an identity as a dual-career couple. They are committed to their strong desire to stay financially independent from an employer—or, say, a house—in a specific location. Then, they continue to build their identity in the new location.
Singapore has many expatriates, 90% of whom are men. Silje and Tim purposely present themselves as a career couple in social settings. It’s equally important for them to be transparent that Silje is the expat and Tim is the locally employed spouse.
Third, the couple creates what we call secure spaces: moments or places where the couple intentionally exchanges reflections and discusses important matters. “We do talk a lot,” Silje says. “We are in constant conversation, often while taking a walk in the evening or when we can share a ride on the train to work. We tend to find small moments, small pockets—and integrate those into the day.”
Not all employers are as lucky as Silje’s company. Her employer happened to pick a person who had already done the essential groundwork in her role as part of a couple—well before the topic of expatriation was raised. Items that often take up many resources in international mobility, such as schooling, housing, and social life, were not priority items for Silje and Tim. They knew that they would be able to sort those out, as they already had for years in their home country. Instead, their discussion was about advancing their vision as a dual-career couple and maintaining their core values.
An Experience Twice as Nice
Kashaf and Zaroon have been together for about 12 years. They come from South Asia, have two children, and currently live in Central Asia. Their family has been expatriated once before, to Africa, through Zaroon’s employer. Zaroon works as a finance director for a nongovernmental organization (NGO) in education, and Kashaf has a job as an HR consultant for two NGOs.
When Zaroon’s employer offered him a position in Africa, the couple already had a clear vision—for their children to have a good life and not have to care financially for their aging parents. Once expatriated, Zaroon and Kashaf discovered that an international career was the best way to achieve their shared vision.
“Our vision has been to move—to work toward a good retirement, which means not having to rely on our children. We’ve made investments, buying land in our home country to make that happen,” the couple says. “We want our children to have a good life. We started with little means. We had to borrow money for our marriage. At the same time, we want to have two careers.”
Now expatriated for a second time, the couple has adapted their vision to include allowing their children to benefit from an international education.
Apart from a shared vision, other factors contributed to the successful international moves of this dual-career couple. Kashaf and Zaroon also benefit from a secure space. They plan a lot. They did much research before moving to their current country so they could settle down quickly and easily. They have these important discussions while enjoying a cup of chai together at night when the kids are sleeping.
Finally, they are also clear about who they are. On the one hand, they have found an external anchor in Zaroon’s employer. They have been expatriated twice by this NGO and they intend to continue in this way for the foreseeable future. Internally, they are anchored to their community of faith, in which they are active members. As a couple, they have constructed an identity that transcends borders.
There is no denying that the decision to move to a different country is a difficult one, notably for a dual-career couple. “Before moving to Central Asia, we researched the place, browsed the internet, and set up appointments before we arrived,” Kashaf and Zaroon say. “We were uncomfortable going where there was no place of worship or community center for our community of faith. So at first, we refused. Then we developed scenarios of what it could be like. After one year, we said yes. Now we’re happy to be here.”
Not all employers are as patient as Zaroon’s NGO. His employer waited until all the ducks were in a row before moving this precious talent to the right place. Kashaf and Zaroon, like Silje and Tim, needed time to do the groundwork, based on their experience in their first expatriation. Their decision was based on how this shared experience would contribute to their vision as an ICC and how to remain true to their core values.
When Giving Resources and Space Benefits Everyone
We purposefully researched a variety of dual-career couples: younger and older, married and unmarried, with and without children, same and different sex. Some of these ICCs may find themselves disadvantaged in comparison to other couples when it comes to mobility (e.g., dangerous locations for families or difficulties in obtaining a resident permit in certain locations for same sex or unmarried couples). However, such contextual factors do not fundamentally disadvantage these couples when it comes to combining two careers and international mobility.
We recommend that employers empower ICCs by handing them the tools and the space
to reflect and develop their solutions, rather than forcing them into an expatriate policy framework that does not fit them. It was of fundamental importance that Zaroon’s NGO gave the couple space to plan and reflect until the circumstances were right for their next expatriation. Kashaf and Zaroon and Silje and Tim have learned that working as a team is fundamental for long-term success. Likewise, other ICCs will benefit from a joint vision, mutual career development, and a secure space their employers help create.