Expat Women - Trailing Spouse Research & Call for Expat Writing Submissions

Hi Everyone, I hope you have enjoyed a wonderful week! Whilst our main Expat Women site is still on an indefinite "break", we wanted to share the following quick news items which might be of interest...

‘Being Dumped In To Sink Or Swim’: An Empirical Study of Organizational Support for The Trailing Spouse

Congratulations to my friend Dr Yvonne McNulty (a leading authority on expatriate return on investment and an academic expert in the field of expatriation) on the recent publication of her 'Being dumped in to sink or swim' paper, in the journal Human Resource Development International. 

Yvonne is an Australian who has lived as an expat in the United States, Singapore and now China. She rose to expat-research prominence years ago, with her four-year study about the challenges and opportunities for the Trailing Spouse. If you are interested in reading Yvonne's comprehensive article, please visit this site (current article price is US$36). 

New Survey Results Published - Career Choice and The Accompanying Partner

Evelyn Simpson and Louise Wiles (co-founders of the site AccompanyingPartner) released last month the results of their “Career Choice and the Accompanying Partner” survey. The survey of 312 accompanying partners on expat assignments in 59 countries around the world explored the decisions they make in relation to their own careers when they relocate with their partners on expat assignments. 

The study, which has been shortlisted for a European EMMA award by the Forum for Expatriate Management, helps organisations to understand how the assignment experience can affect the accompanying partners’ well being and provides a road map for providing them with effective and cost-efficient support. It highlights the desire of many accompanying partners to work, the factors beyond the availability of work permits which affect their ability to work, and the possible effects on the fulfilment that they may derive from the assignment experience. 

A free summary of the survey report is available on their AccompanyingPartner website, where the full report also can be purchased for €147. You can also contact Evelyn Simpson and Louise Wiles via info@accompanyingpartner.com.

Expat Women in Asia: Call for Submissions

Editor Shannon Young is seeking contributions from expatriate women in East Asia for a new anthology from Signal 8 Press in Hong Kong. 

"This collection will feature the writing of women who are currently expatriates or who previously lived in an East Asian country. For the purposes of this anthology, we construe East Asia to include Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and the ASEAN countries. All submissions should be creative non-fiction and/or travel memoir pieces that speak to the expat experience in modern East Asia. Potential topics include travel, work, relationships, gender roles, safety, family, and repatriation. We are looking for stories with a strong and personal narrative arc, not just travel guides or descriptions of the places you’ve lived. We hope to make this anthology as inclusive as possible, as well, and we welcome submissions from women from different parts of the world. 

Contributions should be between approximately 2000 and 5000 words in length. Each writer will receive two copies of the completed anthology and a percentage of the royalties to be determined by the final number of contributors. Please send all submissions, with a brief paragraph about the author, to shannon [at] typhoon-media [dot] com. Submissions should be in Microsoft Word, .doc or .docx format, and in a standard font. The deadline for submissions is 28 February 2013. This title will be released in paperback and e-book formats in the spring of 2014. Thank you."   

Listed Your Expat Women Blog Yet?

Our Expat Women Blog Directory is still very active. New blogs are added all the time. If you have not submitted your expat blog yet, please consider doing so here. We would love to see it.

On Twitter?

Finally, if you are interested in more regular expat headlines, social media tidbits, motivational quotes and tips from writers around the world, feel free to follow me on Twitter via @andreaexpat.


Until next time... thank you for your ongoing support and I wish you a truly sensational weekend,

Andrea (Martins)

Expat Partners: Do You Really Want To Work, Or Are You Just Paying Lip-Service To Your Lack Of A Career Abroad? (Survey)

Hi Everyone, Evelyn Simpson and her colleague Louise Wiles have put together a survey with regards to how relocation abroad has affected the career choices of accompanying expat partners.

If you can help by completing the survey, please do so here. They estimate it to take about 15 minutes.

Here are some words from Evelyn Simpson...

"When I contemplate the dynamic and successful careers that my husband and I had when our expat days were just beginning, I wonder how, after nearly 12 years of moving over three continents and with two children, our lives would be if we were still trying to maintain both of those careers. Here are just some of the problems for which I could not envision solutions:

* How would we manage to engineer moves with different companies to the same countries without one or other of us stepping back?

* Would we both be able to get working visas if one of us had to look for a new job with a move?

* Would we both be able to progress our careers with multiple moves or would disruption, language issues, salary issues, recognition of qualifications and experience have derailed one or both careers?

* How would we have managed childcare issues - day to day, days when kids were sick, holidays - without all our familiar systems in place?

* How would we have managed the practicalities of our six moves if both of us had to start work straight away?

For us, it was a moot point. I wanted to be able to see my daughter in the mornings and the evenings but the intensity and unpredictability of investment banking would make that a rare occurrence. So I resigned. But for other couples, these are just some of the dilemmas they face when one is offered the opportunity to move internationally and both want to continue with their careers.

Unfortunately the numbers show that few couples manage to pull it off successfully. The Permits Foundation's 2008 International Survey of Expatriate Spouses and Partners showed that while 90% of spouses and partners were either in paid employment or self employed prior to relocation, only 28% remained so after relocation.

In my own case, the decision was carefully thought out and driven by my desire for a change as well as the needs of our family. However, after two more international moves and another baby, a return to work in a new country, and with limited support seemed like a long shot. And that’s before I considered that, before long, we would be on the move again. Luckily for me, in coaching I found my vocation, which I can conveniently practice from wherever I find myself and which gives me the flexibility to accommodate our family logistics. However, you can see that although my initial decision was purposeful, the unintended consequence of our choices was that my options to return to a traditional workplace were limited, regardless of my legal entitlement.

Earlier this summer, Louise Wiles, founder of Success Abroad Coaching and I responded to a question on LinkedIn which asked if accompanying partners really want to work or whether we just pay lip service to the idea of working, safe in the knowledge that legally, most of us are prevented from doing so. Inspired by the question and our interest in the lives of accompanying partners, we decided to launch a survey, which explores this topic and also considers the factors which influence the choice to work or not and how that choice affects life satisfaction.

If you would like to support our work, please complete the survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/partnerscareerchoices

Many, many thanks! Evelyn."