“This is not a career move” - accompanying partners’ labour market participation after migration

Abstract

In recent years, an increasingly international competition for highly-skilled professionals has become apparent. Many countries try to attract highly-skilled migrants and to keep them for the long term. These countries also allow the immigration of close family members, who are expected to play an important role in the decision to migrate and to stay in a country. However, accompanying partners often face significant difficulties when entering the foreign labour market. The paper is based on 26 qualitative interviews with the accompanying partners of highly-skilled migrants in the United Kingdom [UK]. It explores the challenges that they face when trying to take up work after migration, elaborates on their strategies of finding work and examines the conditions for their labour market integration. The paper draws on Bourdieu’s concept of capital accumulation and conversion and asks how partners negotiate the value of their cultural capital after migration. In order to better understand their professional integration, accompanying partners’ positions after migration are related to their career plans before migration. Consequently, the paper differentiates between family migrants who use their expatriation as an occasion for a career change, family migrants who continue their career abroad and family migrants who wish to continue their career, but do not succeed.