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Gender, Work and Organization. doi:10.1111/gwao.12016

Vol. 20 No. 2 March 2013

In the Rhythm of the Global Market: Female Expatriates and Mobile Careers: A Case Study of Indian ICT Professionals on the Move Hannelore Roos Drawing upon research regarding the complexities of family reunification migration and the migration of highly skilled individuals, this article outlines the experiences in mobility of highly skilled female professionals in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector. In turn, the focus lies on the impact of mobility on family life and how the family influences decision-making processes regarding transnational career trajectories. In migration studies, little attention has been given to family-linked migration among the highly skilled. This anthropological research contributes to filling this gap as the experiences and coping strategies of Indian ICT professionals and their accompanying spouses will be studied from their point of view. This article presents narrative biographical data on Indian ICT professionals, their dependants, and dual-career households, with or without children, who embarked on mobile career paths that led to Belgium. The data have been gathered through participant observation and in-depth, semistructured interviews, and were analysed in terms of exclusion and inclusion in a globalized knowledge economy. By looking at the intersection of female biographies and expatriation, this case study demonstrates the family dynamics in mobility decisions and the multidirectional characteristics of careers offered by the global ICT sector. Keywords: highly skilled migration, expatriates, gender, transnationalism

Introduction

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n the words of Skrbiš (2008, p. 231), ‘The transnational family is a symptom of our increasingly globalized lives, which take place across borders and boundaries.’ Although transnational family life is not a recent phenomenon in itself, it is a new trend amongst the middle class1 of India which is involved in highly skilled professions such as engineering. More specifically, the information and communication technology (ICT) sector offers occupational mobility and an emerging transnational opportunity structure which spreads the family network around the globe. The findings will indicate indeed that, probably more than other professions, the global ICT market allows to a great extent dual-career couples to synchronize their mobile career trajectories across borders. This research on female expatriates focuses not merely on the individual, but takes the nuclear household into account in order to describe and analyse the position of Asian Indian men and women working as ICT professionals in Belgium. Career-based mobility in general, which has become a common practice of the educated middle-class in India, is supported by a liberal migration policy that facilitates temporary migration of highly skilled workers. However, the rising personal and social

Address for correspondence: *Hannelore Roos, Interculturalism, Migration and Minorities Research Centre (IMMRC), Faculty of Social Sciences, KU Leuven, Parkstraat 45 bus 3615, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; e-mail: [email protected]

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GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

costs of international mobility, and the way in which both men and women cope with the consequences of the new economy leading to transnational biographies, have been barely acknowledged. This study, therefore, will investigate from a gender perspective the experiences of job-related relocation for the accompanying spouses of Indian ICT professionals. The self-understanding of the frayed career paths of these women and the strategies they use for coping with the mobile careers of their spouses will be the focus of research. Usually based on individualistic-oriented migration theories, migration policies often cast the individual as the main actor in the process of highly skilled migration. However, based on the case study of Indian ICT professionals, it is argued that the individual actor cannot be removed from the family and the social fabric in which it functions. As Williams and Baláž (2008, p. 177) state: ‘The mobility of individuals also impacts on other members of their households, whether children or elderly parents who may be left behind or uprooted, or spouses who are faced with difficult choices about their own careers.’ The point of departure for this study is the perspective of accompanying spouses, in general females, of Indian ICT professionals working on a temporary basis in Belgium. These lived experiences narrated from an emic point of view show how the family deals with job-related relocation and how it affects the careers of accompanying spouses and the dynamic of the household as a whole.

Transnational migration and family reunification through a gendered lens Professional or highly skilled migration and its impact on family dynamics from a gender perspective is a rather new and emerging field within the anthropology of migration. According to Vertovec (2007), it can be stated that the anthropology of migration is on the rise. Since the 1990s, transnational migration studies emerged in the recognition that, while being incorporated in new localities, many contemporary migrants and their predecessors maintain various kinds of ties to their homelands in different realms, for example on the economic, political, social, cultural and religious levels (Hannerz, 1996; Levitt and Jaworsky, 2007). Nonetheless, several authors (Fechter, 2007; Kearney, 1995; Kofman, 2000; Pessar and Mahler, 2003; Raghuram, 2004a; Vertovec, 2002) have pointed out the lack of a gendered approach in transnational migration studies and, in particular, on privileged migrants. Family-related migration is considered a human right and has been one of the most prevalent ways for legal migration into Europe in the past few decades (Kofman et al., 2000). Continental European countries such as Belgium are new destinations for highly skilled migrants and, over time, family reunification has become a privileged, highly diversified path for immigration to Belgium.2 Hence, the nexus between transnational migration and gender is a compelling research domain. The migration of the highly skilled may seem to be a gender-neutral process of movement. However, the figures show that it is mainly male-dominated, while tied migrants are young and female (Lodewyckx et al., 2011). In general, it can be observed in policy making that family migration is treated with suspicion (Schmidt, 2011) or is placed in contradistinction to labour market participation (Kofman, 2008). If the active role of spouses is acknowledged, it is often perceived as in competition with the host society in the labour market or as consuming the host society’s resources. Therefore, policymakers tend to build in a restriction that dependants cannot claim a stronger position than the principal migrant they are tied to. This results in weak legal positions of accompanying spouses, which makes them the more vulnerable party within the household. Furthermore, this practice leads to the binary terminology of ‘principal’ and ‘dependant’ migrants, which carries an underlying assumption that accompanying spouses play a passive role in the migration process and disregards spouses’ professional ambitions and aspirations. ‘Dependants’ are imagined to hold subordinate positions within household dynamics or are thought to be culturally obliged to sacrifice their careers ‘for the sake of the family’. The data indicate that the etic categories enforced by lawmakers do not converge with the actual self-descriptions and experiences of accompanying spouses in this study, and can be better nuanced in the light of skilled migration, and more specifically, related to the sector of ICT. Volume 20 Number 2 March 2013


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The global market of ICT and its effects on the mobility of the family This article questions whether an individualistic-oriented approach is sufficient in the study of migration and, more particularly, in the study of Indian highly skilled professionals working in the global ICT market. It investigates what this sector means to Indian female professionals and how career-oriented accompanying spouses cope with the insecurities caused by relocation and the external uncertainties of the local labour market abroad. Expatriate women and wives of expatriates can be categorized according to Taylor and Napier (1996) into three groups: transferees, trailers and independents. While transferees and independents are assured of continuing their career across borders before entering the host country, the same cannot be said for accompanying spouses. Being a foreigner and being a woman is, in the literature on migrants and economic incorporation in the labour market, described as a double disadvantage (Rubin et al., 2008). However, the status of a dependant visa does not imply that these migrant women are inherently non-productive. Recent studies contradict the generalization of women as ‘trailing spouses’ and passive partners (Raghuram, 2004b; Williams and Baláž, 2008). Working migrant women are usually portrayed as working in traditionally female jobs (education, health, social and domestic work); however, this trend is not observed among accompanying spouses of highly skilled workers. In the study of Western expatriates, Coles and Fechter (2008) observe that the linear continuation of the career of the husband is often prioritized over the professional ambitions and the career path of his wife, which is discontinued or temporarily put on hold once abroad. As occupational relocation contains a threat of unemployment or biographical uncertainty for accompanying spouses, it can be questioned how dual-earner couples deal with the risks produced by these circumstances. As Piper (2005, p. 22) states: ‘Virtually nothing is known of the professional aspirations of female family migrants and their economic integration’. This research aims to shed light on the frayed biographies and non-linear career trajectories of accompanying spouses. In the scope of this research, the following questions will be addressed in more depth: What are the vulnerabilities and insecurities accompanying spouses face while aspiring to cope with the rhythm of the global market and desire to join their husband abroad? How are decisions regarding career routes taken and how do dualcareer couples manage to keep their biographies intertwined? How do they cope with temporal discontinuities related to expatriation and the liminal phases caused by the geographic multidirectional careers of their husband? Building upon the focus of Fechter (2007), who investigates the limiting and liberating effects of migration, in particular for women, the case study presented aims to look through this gendered lens. By taking the familial context into account, the objectives of this study are to begin to unravel how accompanying spouses perceive and cope with this transitional phase of relocation in relation to their personal life cycle and meandering career path.

India: A key player in the global ICT market It is important to acknowledge the characteristics of the migration of highly skilled individuals and the context in which job-related relocation of Indian ICT professionals and their spouses is taking place. Individual lives are greatly affected by alterations in the organization and relationships of production (Goss and Lindquist, 1995), leading to changing ‘careerscapes’. By reviewing recent global migration processes, an increase in the migration of skilled people across international borders can be observed (Williams and Baláž, 2008). Shifts occur in the geography of international migration, for example in the global software labour market, where mobile professionals from Third World countries participate in the First World of the global economy, where a new international division of labour is taking place (Findlay and Li, 1997; Mir et al., 2000). Currently, India is one of the global leaders in the provision of both ICT and IT enabled services (ITES). A new business model of ‘offshoring’ puts India in the centre of the global services revolution


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(Davies, 2004) and has enhanced India’s integration and reputation in the global economy (Upadhya and Vasavi, 2008). This business model is based on knowledge transfers, which leads to the mobility of human resources. In the careers of many Indian ICT professionals, international migration has become a routine pathway for learning and knowledge acquisition, as well as a method of gaining international exposure and cultural knowledge. Organizational ties stipulate the destinations of the recruited engineers, trained to become versatile ICT employees. Rather than one’s own, individualized social networks, the transnational networks of the company are an important facilitator for job-related relocation and play a significant role in shaping the career trajectories of flexible ICT professionals. The global network of clients of the local branch of the company they work for affects an individual’s eligibility location of on-site assignments. To avoid or to diminish the risks and uncertainties associated with migration, Indian professional migration to Belgium occurs mainly along these transnational networks of outsourcing companies which offer their services to international clients who are in search of additional skills. Indian ICT professionals in Belgium prefer company-backed expatriation over self-initiated expatriation. By moving within and alongside corporate frameworks, which form a relatively stable medium through which they design their mobile careers and family lives, they avoid precarious situations related to an unknown local labour market. Statistical data show that Indian migration to Belgium is characterized mainly by economic migration.3 The number of family reunifications, including follow-up and family-formation migration are limited. Only 645 (2008); 671 (2009); 829 (2010) and 748 (2011) permits for family reasons were issued to Indian citizens in Belgium (Eurostat, 2013a). Rather than family reunification or student mobility, employment seems currently the main pathway for migration.

Research methods and participants In contemporary ethnographic accounts, the practice of conducting ethnographic fieldwork is changing from the geographically mobile ethnographer to the ethnographer who moves from one cultural framework to another (Wilding, 2007). As being partly an outsider researcher (white, Belgian national, not working in the ICT sector) and partly an insider (female, married to an expat of Indian origin and belonging to the same age group), travel to collect data was limited and consisted of a trip from the university town of Leuven to the homes and spaces inhabited by Indian ICT professionals in Brussels, the ‘capital of Europe’. However, each time I entered a home, temple area, festival hall or Indian restaurant, I was introduced to a new social and cultural space. In addition to face-to-face interactions, I was able to tap into networks of Indians in Belgium thanks to word-of-mouth and the online communities of the social networking sites of Orkut, Facebook and the professional networking site LinkedIn. Participant observation in those off- and online networked spaces allowed me to select a sample of information-rich participants. Starting from the observation of Bjerén (1997, p. 226), that the mobility of men cannot be studied separately from the mobility of women, as ‘gender’ is a relational concept, I conducted extensive interviews with Indian expatriate women who joined their husbands abroad with a particular focus on the timing of their relocation and taking the familial context into account. Depending on their availability, I interviewed their spouses also. Being immersed in the research setting enabled me to analyse and interpret the answers of the respondents in a phenomenological ‘horizon of understanding’ (Gadamer, 2004 [1960]) and to discover ‘patterns of meaning’ (Geertz, 1973, p. 250). The results presented in this article draw upon anthropological research which was carried out from 2007 to 2011. All interviews were conducted in English, recorded with the consent of the interviewees and subsequently transcribed by the author. There was no language barrier as such, as English, after the regional mother tongue, is reported to be the first language of the respondents. All participants received their (higher) education in English medium schools, and it is considered to be the official language in their workplaces. Volume 20 Number 2 March 2013



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In total, 25 face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted in Brussels. Ten couples4 were interviewed together and in addition, 15 women were interviewed. In total, five women came as the leading migrant. Of the 20 accompanying spouses, 13 had a background in ICT, of which 11 were also working in this sector abroad. Among the 25 respondents, 17 had children, all of whom were younger than 10 years old. All of the women interviewed had at least a bachelor’s degree, 12 held a master’s degree, and one accompanying spouse held a PhD. All of the interviewees were between 25 and 35 years old. Interviews lasted between one-and-a-half hours and four hours. The next section gives an insight into respondents’ common class background.

Mobile Indian ICT professionals: an emerging meritocratic class of rooted cosmopolitans Indian ICT professionals on the move are highly privileged, capital-linked migrants in terms of human capital, which gives them access to global professional networks. Within the Indian diaspora, they have carved out their own niche as an aspirational upwardly mobile meritocratic class of ‘cosmopolitan patriots’ or ‘rooted cosmopolitans’ (Appiah, 1997), who represent their country abroad while acquiring flexible skills to work and live all over the world. Interviewees mention how they are rooted in their own cultural traditions and try to negotiate these sociocultural expectations in order to match professional ambitions and aspirations to become global ICT professionals. Their career path is mostly highly fluid and ‘boundaryless’ (Arthur and Rousseau, 2001), as they are ready to move at short notice. Fluid careers pursued in different localities challenge traditional family values, which are continuously being negotiated within the family. Company-backed female expatriates working on-site at the client’s premises narrate how they perceive their career in relation to marriage and familial expectations: My father wanted that I did at least masters. What I did after that is my own choice. I wouldn’t stop working after my marriage. I would support my husband yes, but a good partner is also supportive to me, for the household. Things are changing now. With two persons who are earning you can have a better status, you can afford more, you will have a sound family. (Female principal migrant, not married, aged 27) I have one son of four years old, he is in India. He is staying with my mother currently; she takes care of him while I am on-site. All the people around me were telling: ‘don’t go, you should be with your husband’. That told my father and mother-in-law and my grandparents. But my parents supported me ... I asked the opinion of my husband, and he told me if you are interested, you can go. My parents have always encouraged my studies and to be in the first rank. My friends and parents suggested me to go for a job in IT. I studied a lot, why should I waste my skills? (Female principal migrant, aged 31) These respondents show that having the support of the family is seen as an important prerequisite in order to take up an assignment abroad. Not only the educational background in engineering, which is in great demand in the global labour market, but also the familial relations after graduation and marriage continue to play an emancipatory role in developing mobile career paths. Some women, who are divorced for example, even fictitiously invent a supportive husband and family, which serve as a secure shell while working in a male-dominated sector and allow them to also pursue their career across borders. For example, one female leading migrant confided after our interview by e-mail: ‘Since Indians have an under image for divorced females, I could not reveal this to my team that I am single.’ This demonstrates the cultural imperative to be embedded as an individual in a familial network. It shows how culturally dependent principal female migrants are on (imagined) family ties and how these enable female mobile career trajectories.



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Mobile wives and their careers: frayed trajectories? All of the interviewees come from (upper) middle-class backgrounds and enjoyed higher education. Most of them were the first generation of working women in the family who have made inroads into skilled jobs such as software engineering.

Future-oriented strategies To avoid diverging pathways as a couple due to expatriation, decisions to pursue careers overseas were not made at random. Of utmost importance in the design of successful careers are futureoriented strategies, including educational choices such as engineering and marriage preferences for a partner with a similar professional background. In this way, personal biographies are to a great extent mapped out in order to cope with transformative stages and to reduce the contingencies of life, such as career transitions due to marriage or the career development of one’s spouse. Many women were inspired by the booming ICT industry to take up study in this subject area, as a Master’s degree holder in Computer Applications, who married an Indian ICT consultant working in Belgium, expresses: In the late 1990s, IT was booming like anything, so I chose to go into that stream. You could expect to get a good job. It is important now that two are working ... After six months of struggling I found here in Brussels a job as well. In the meantime I have obtained some software certifications, which added to my profile. A newlywed accompanying spouse who has a Bachelor of Technology Engineering degree confides: ‘My family would not have given me away to somebody who is not an engineer, as engineering stands for good and high quality jobs.’ Matching professional identities is preferable in profitable sectors such as ICT and play an important role in how ideal and secure marriages are imagined. A female ICT professional, who after three years of working as a software developer in Hyderabad gave up her job to marry an Indian expat working as an ICT professional in Brussels, recounts: For my family it was important that my husband is from the same region as me, that he is very good and intelligent. His work is good, otherwise he wouldn’t be on-site. In my community, they do not ask for dowry, but as a girl, it is important to be educated and to be into employment. If something would happen, I should be independent. While in general men can freely take advantage of the opportunities offered from working in the global ICT market, this is not always the case for female professionals but depends on the development of the personal biography of the individual in accordance with the familial context. The transition to a married life, for example, can open up new career opportunities for women. One interviewee said that her husband, who was already working in Brussels, facilitated the pursuit of her career as a software engineer abroad. She recalls her time of being a young professional, eager to join the team on-site, but was restricted by her mother who was not in favour of the idea: If you are not married ... some parents might restrict the girl to go abroad or to take up a job. It happened with me also. I got the opportunity to go to Japan. My father was more supportive, but my mother forced me and my father that I wouldn’t go. It was only a three months assignment, but I had to drop the plan because I was single at that point of time.

Frayed families and frayed confidence The personal narratives, which range from deciding to becoming a housewife to putting careers temporally on hold or joining a local company, do not merely fit into a ‘sacrifice and suffering’ approach. The biographical account presented below of an accompanying spouse who became the leading migrant in a second European country, illustrates the relativity of static categories such as Volume 20 Number 2 March 2013



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‘leading’ and ‘dependent’, which do not fit into new career cultures as exemplified by the non-linear and mobile career trajectories of ICT couples. It also demonstrates the fact that the male breadwinner model is no longer the dominant one and more dynamic models are emerging of dual careers5 and ‘dual care’ households which stretches even beyond geographical borders. I came to Germany because my husband is also in IT and I got married at that time so I joined him abroad. That is the normal procedure you know, when you get married, the girl leaves the job and she joins her husband. Within 6 months I worked as a freelancer like my husband, for the same client as his ... After 7 years my contract terminated in Germany and I found another assignment in Belgium. Initially I commuted, but when my contract got extended I took the kids with me.... Finally this year we will go back, his contract ends in Germany and he will join a new company in India. I joined an Indian company here in Brussels through which I can go back home as well. I will still be working for the same client, but offshore. (2 children, worked in Brussels first as a freelancer, later for an Indian outsource company, aged 32) Especially for career-oriented women without a background in ICT, mobility is exploited as a channel for personal growth, self-development and extra training to increase their employability during liminal phases in the construction of their career path. Although in the moral economy of Indian families it is preferred to follow the husband after marriage, creative solutions such as semi-long-distance relationships might occur to safeguard a satisfying work–life balance as a couple. As a Senior Technical Architect working for one of the leading Indian ICT service companies, who embarked on a one-year project on-site which eventually got extended to a four-year assignment, explains: My wife is currently studying in the UK. She visits me during the weekends and holidays. She used to work in India before as a radio DJ. In Belgium there was no training or job available for her in English. In the UK you don’t face any language problem, so she temporarily moved there to continue in her field while I’m working on-site in Belgium. For many accompanying spouses, initially language creates boundaries which constrain them in terms of professional, social and spatial movements. Language is perceived as a limiting factor to develop oneself abroad, both from a personal and professional point of view, which initiates feelings of restriction and isolation. For some respondents, so-called ‘freshers’, with none or very limited work experience in ICT upon arrival abroad, the language barrier is a handicap for which their technical skills cannot compensate. By receiving job rejection letters due to a lack of local language skills, many of the women feel in one sense that they are temporarily ‘descending’ in life, despite their educational attainment. Ultimately they will have to make an investment in self-exploration in order to discover new opportunities and to regain their confidence, while their husbands can, more or less, stay in the comfort zone of their familiar work routine. However, as living and working abroad is surrounded by an aura of prestige, many of the couples remarked that they strongly feel they are ‘ascending’ on the social ladder of success. Before discussing particular gendered strategies in overcoming the transitional phase of expatriation as an accompanying spouse, the next section discusses how formal and informal networks are deployed in supporting the continuation of female careers.

Careers to be continued abroad as qualified ICT professionals Similar to the experiences of Western expatriates, joint decisions to move abroad are largely influenced by financial considerations, as described by Fechter (2007, p. 44): As expatriate assignments are often exceptionally well remunerated, both husbands and wives regard this as an opportunity to get on a more secure financial footing as a family, or, for example, to pay off their mortgage. A sense of shared benefit as a family thus affects a decision in favour of the relocation.



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Working for transnational corporations is often preferred because, when couples work for the same company, its wide networks can offer the opportunity for career-oriented women to tune their professional ambitions with the career trajectory of their spouse. Allowing couples to work together helps women overcome transitional phases such as marriage and expatriation. A young female ICT professional who went on-site immediately after her engagement puts confidence in the organizational structures of the company she is working for to secure her career as a married woman: I preferred somebody who is in IT. When the profession is the same, we can understand each other better. He is working for the same company as I do and when I come back we will decide in which campus we will work together. Companies support couples who work for them in the sense that they try to send them together on-site, if not to the same client, at least to the same city. Such a pragmatic future-oriented strategy which allows couples to be professionally mobile is usually only possible within the boundaries of the ICT sector itself. Other occupations do not have that flexibility, as these might not be in demand in the local labour market where specific skills and experiences might be required. Women can be active negotiators in the context of the migration of skilled workers (Yeoh and Khoo, 1998, p. 162), which is reflected in how ICT couples navigate various strategies in order to synchronize personal and professional biographies in the rhythm of the global economy. When organizational structures are lacking or not beneficial to rely on, professional networks of the husband often turn out to be effective in incorporating accompanying spouses in the ICT labour market abroad. The following examples show that the aspirations of the accompanying spouse can also play a role in the decision to take up an on-site assignment or to relocate for job-related reasons within Europe, however under the condition that both careers can be continued. I had already been to the US to work there for 5 months. So when my husband had to choose between Boston and Brussels, I thought it would be better to explore Europe this time. Because of the Schengen visa, you can go to so many other countries ... I had already a good background and professional experience so a friend of my husband referred me. I must say, referral goes faster than if your profile is forwarded by a consulting company. (Female ICT professional on local pay-roll, aged 28) Husband: I got first a job here in Belgium and then we found a job for my wife. Wife continues: Only then I resigned, it was a common understanding between us, when both persons are working, we don’t find a point in that, as long as we have that capability, we still have no kids around, why should I select a profile to sit at home? If we wouldn’t have found a job in Belgium for me, we would have stayed in Finland and wouldn’t have moved.

Gendered strategies of bridging career gaps abroad For many of the accompanied women, moving to Europe entailed a new beginning or a new moment in their personal lives, such as being recently married, expecting their first child or a chance to rediscover their personal relationship with their husband. Having a newborn or a young child was the most cited reason for currently not working, even though some had employable skills to work in the ICT sector. For newlyweds, the new phase of being married is welcomed and explored with a certain curiosity, as one female respondent expressed: ‘I discovered a new quality as a homemaker. Here abroad I learned how to cook.’ One interviewee, trained in software testing, expressed her stay in Belgium as a ‘prolonged honeymoon’, as she was enjoying various touristic destinations with her husband. She tried to comfort and to encourage her friends, who were nervously exchanging experiences of their job hunt in Brussels, to value the private and intimate time they can spend together with their husbands, a luxury not so easily afforded back home. Volume 20 Number 2 March 2013



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Also beyond borders, careers are constantly being negotiated, depending upon interesting opportunities to increase one’s value in the labour market and to enhance one’s self-fulfilment. This is related to the changing perspective on careers in the new economy, which, as Sabelis (2010) indicates, is moving from being considered as simply earning a living to developing the self and understanding the professional identity as a result of the enterprising self. All the interviewees were walking a fine line of trying to balance both their personal and professional goals within the given political and economic opportunity structure. Satisfying those interests and searching for long-term job security, not only for the principal migrant, but also for the accompanying spouse, could, for most of them and particularly for those women who are not involved in ICT, only converge in the homeland. Especially for non-ICT career-oriented women, repatriation allows them to more easily intertwine their professional aspirations with their personal biographies.

Repatriation or the frayed expatriate cycle Depending on the ebb and flow of the economy, the planned repatriation can initiate a new expatriate cycle again or repatriation can be exchanged for a prolonged stay due to the permanent character of the job of the accompanied spouse. Since the ICT sector is embedded in a dynamic global economy, it offers multidirectional career trajectories (Baruch, 2004) which also create space to mould female careers in a self-entrepreneurial way. In the case of company-backed expatriation, the organizational structure of the company can support couples to be sent to the same on-site location and can repatriate the couple again without causing any career discontinuities. In general, dual-career couples of whom one of the partners had no background in ICT were too optimistic about job opportunities abroad. As both partners attach much importance to their professional identity, accompanying spouses who are not able to fit into the thin local labour market tend to decide to move back to their home country to earnestly pursue their own career rather than to accept long-term breaks. The respondents have a realistic image of the labour market at home by following up on the job scene through their former colleagues and friends and by retaining their transnationally developed professional networks. Repatriation is thoughtfully prepared and often goes hand in hand with a change in family status as well. The additional identity of female professionals of becoming mothers, which is socially highly recognized, might alter certain aspirations once at home, depending on the family structure in which they are embedded. One behavioural training consultant who joined her husband on-site and in the meantime became a mother of two children indicates conflicting emotions when trying to pick up her career at home again: Although I have been abroad for six years, I am sure I can find a job in my area of expertise as training is a never ending requirement ... Personally speaking, none of my family wants me to work now as the priority is kids, not that I said I would go to work and leave the kids in day care. By working part-time from home as a freelancer compiling training materials, she meanders between her professional ambitions and her socially and culturally informed understanding of being ‘a good mother’.

How mobile are families and how portable are careers? Highly skilled migrants are often studied as a homogeneous, uniform group, consisting of individuals, without taking the familial situation into account. The study of the female careers of accompanying spouses of ICT professionals throws an interesting perspective on job-related relocation. As demonstrated by this case study, the ICT global market clearly permits young professionally-oriented couples to plan their family life in accordance with a mobile career, including expatriation. By focusing not only on the individual, but on the individual’s interrelations, it becomes clear that decisions are not merely made by the individual but are negotiated and discussed in the nuclear



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household, the extended family or even in the wider community in which a ‘culture of migration’ (Ali, 2007) might prevail. These narratives tell a more complex story than that of women as inactive ‘dependants’. The dynamics of globally interdependent labour markets shape frayed individual and familial biographies and influence the spacing and timing of life-course choices for all members of the family. The household and the family play an important role in the decision-making process and in coping with the temporal aspects and potential risks of migration. To be and to remain internationally mobile as a household is perceived as the main goal to work towards, even if supporting husbands need to be invented to protect the careers of single professionally-oriented women from the uncertainties and risks of relocation and of working in male-dominated sectors. The data show that, at least in the case of Indian ICT workers, to stay tuned with the dynamics of the global market and the flexibility needed to learn the steps to keep pace with its rhythm is not an individual endeavour. As the ICT sector, a prototypical example of the new economy, offers jobrelated spatial mobility, it challenges the careers of accompanying spouses. However, as it facilitates occupational transitions, it can also entail potential for spouses with an ICT background. The investments of accompanying spouses made previously in their employability in the global economy, in combination with the professional networks of their husbands, are calculated to determine whether they will be successfully incorporated in the local labour market abroad. The resilience not only of the individual, but of family in general, plays an important role in the development of ‘female careers’ and how these are perceived. It is a challenge for policymakers and companies who are in favour of attracting skilled employees to fuel the local knowledge economy to acknowledge and value the potential of accompanying spouses and to strengthen their employable skills.

Notes 1. 2.

For a discussion of the new Indian middle class involved in ICT, see Fuller and Narasimhan (2007). Overall, the numbers increased. In 2008, 20,320; in 2009, 28,523; in 2010, 28,667; and in 2011, 25,509 first permits were issued for family reasons in Belgium (Eurostat, 12-01-2013, http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/ nui/show.do?dataset=migr_resfam&lang=en). 3. The numbers of first permits for remunerated activities given to Indian citizens in Belgium were, according to Eurostat (2013b), 1,978 (2008); 1,354 (2009); 841 (2010) and 738 (2011). 4. Interviewees recounted both arranged and love marriages, but this condition played no major role in the formation or perception of their frayed career trajectories. 5. It is important to notice that in relation to gender the Indian ICT sector contrasts with its counterparts in Europe and America (cf. Fuller and Narasimhan, 2007, pp. 137–41). In India, working in the ICT industry is described by all interviewees as one of the most suitable jobs for women, as it implies a desk job with the possibility of working from home.

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