{"id":2212,"date":"2015-08-10T10:58:27","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T09:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/?p=2212"},"modified":"2015-08-10T10:58:27","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T09:58:27","slug":"trailing-spouse-an-outdated-label-with-important-implications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2015\/08\/10\/trailing-spouse-an-outdated-label-with-important-implications\/","title":{"rendered":"Trailing Spouse: An Outdated Label with Important Implications?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"trailing<\/a>A couple of years ago I wrote a post<\/a> highlighting the important topic of trailing spouse<\/strong>s and their need for more organizational support. According to the numbers of some industry surveys at that time, the adjustment problems and dissatisfaction of spouses\/partners, as well as dual-career issues topped the list of expatriation challenges. Today, looking at the data of the latest Brookfield Global Mobility Trend survey<\/a> (2015), the picture does not seem to have changed much. A spouse\u2019s career remains the second most important reason for assignment refusal, and 69% of respondents expect spouse career issues to become even more important in light of attracting employees for international assignments in the future. Moreover, spouse resistance to international assignments and their career issues remain in the list of critical family-related assignee challenges. Nevertheless, in line with the historical average, today 80% of assignees are accompanied by their spouses during an international assignment. Naturally, family adjustment (including spouse adjustment) tops the expat challenges already during the assignment.<\/p>\n

Given this data, as well as extensive academic research evidence<\/a> showing that the trailing spouse<\/strong> plays a key role for assignment success, adjustment and performance, the topic seems to be far from forgotten. My two-year old statement that \u2018trailing spouses are in need of organizational support\u2019 remains valid, as they too (similarly to expats themselves) undergo a major life changing experience and have difficulties to adjust. Moreover, differently from their expat spouses, they usually lose their job and part of their identity<\/a>, which is why they feel more isolated. All of these topics are also evident in the stories of expat spouse<\/strong>s on the Internet. Yet, what caught my attention, when browsing through these stories, was something different.<\/p>\n

I noticed that many speak about the discomfort of being called \u2018trailing spouses<\/strong>\u2019 and treated alike. It occurred to me that many of the adjustment, isolation and identity problems do actually spur from societal labeling<\/strong>, stereotyping<\/strong> and perceptions. For example, Quenby Wilcox, a trailing spouse<\/strong> herself and the Founder of Global Expats<\/a>, argues<\/a> that, as much as we would like it not to be the case, the term \u2018trailing spouse<\/strong>\u2019 still has its accurate societal implications. Quenby says that \u2018the term implies that the expat wife is nothing more than an appendage of her husband; given no more consideration or appreciation than any other “article” included in the transfer of her husband’s household goods\u2019. Note that the term \u2018spouse\u2019 is hence perceived as synonymous to \u2018wife,\u2019 despite its more encompassing meaning. As such, no new definition, such as \u2018accompanying partner\u2019 would solve the situation, unless the all-too-prevalent attitude towards the expat wife-the homemaker-the one “who doesn’t do anything”<\/em> would change.<\/p>\n

Similar notions come from another expat wife<\/strong>, who plies<\/a> not to call her a trailing spouse<\/strong>. Although accompanying her husband on his assignment abroad, Claire refuses to be anything that fits the \u2018trailing spouse<\/strong>\u2019 label. She is not the classical homemaker<\/strong>, she certainly does not sit at home waiting for her husband to return from work, she has friends and interest outside the expat wives\u2019 community, she does not introduce herself or allow being called as \u2018Mrs. Jeremy\u2019 (using her husband\u2019s name), nor does she bake pies for expat events.<\/p>\n

So it seems that there is a clear label attached to being a \u2018trailing spouse<\/strong>\u2019, a label quite conservative in its gender differences and gender role preferences. The same label and gender stereotypes<\/strong> are what makes it extremely difficult also for male trailing spouses, or so-called \u2018Mr Moms\u2019.<\/p>\n

As mentioned well in an older Telegraph article<\/a>, the concept of a male-focused expat welfare structure, including welfare of trailing males, is comparatively non-existent. Male trailing spouses go against one of the most common gender stereotypes<\/strong> \u2013 the one that the male is a breadwinner and woman a homemaker and caregiver to children. As such, trailing males are quite likely to suffer from social disapproval and isolation.<\/p>\n

All in all, I would suggest that rather than further debating the term \u2018trailing spouse,\u2019 its definition and practical implications should be continuously challenged. The way we still tend to think of trailing spouses becomes dysfunctional and outdated for both, women and men. Yet, as can be seen from an interview with a the trailing male published by the Expatriate Connection blog<\/a>, the inconvenient truth is that we, as society, are still far from thinking and acting outside of our labels<\/strong> and stereotypes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of years ago I wrote a post highlighting the important topic of trailing spouses and their need for more organizational support. According to the numbers of some industry surveys at that time, the adjustment problems and dissatisfaction of spouses\/partners, as well as dual-career issues topped the list of expatriation challenges. Today, looking at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18330],"tags":[89467,89464,89463,89465,89461,89466,89462,44866],"class_list":["post-2212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-views-and-news-about-expatriates","tag-expat-spouse","tag-expat-wife","tag-gender-stereotypes","tag-homemaker","tag-labels","tag-societal-labeling","tag-stereotypes","tag-trailing-spouse","megacategoria-mc-leadership-and-people-management"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2212"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2215,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2212\/revisions\/2215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}