Keywords

Introduction

This chapter explores the spillover effects of transnational mobility on professional and private life spheres, paying particular attention to the gender dynamics of vulnerability. From an interdisciplinary perspective, our aim is to explore the vulnerabilities associated with various forms of geographical mobility in societies (see Forbes-Mewett, 2020) characterised by increasing levels of spatial displacement (Cresswell, 2006; Kaufmann, 2020) and by uneven shifts in gender norms across countries and among social groups (Bornatici et al., 2021; Daly, 2020; Esping-Andersen, 2009). We define transnational mobility as a physical displacement across borders that is imbued with a wide array of meanings, imaginaries and practices (Frello, 2008; Salazar & Smart, 2011). As a complex human experience, mobility is always entangled with other aspects of the life course (Cangià, 2021). Here, we are particularly interested in the interplay between the experience of transnational mobility, including different forms of short- or long-term cross-border relocation, and the gender configurations of professional and family life. Our empirical studies cover a diverse selection of geographically mobile and immobile people, including those who are commonly associated with privileged forms of transnational movement (Amit, 2011) and those who are often perceived as more constrained movers.

In line with the analytical framework developed in this book, we define vulnerability as a time-sensitive process related to critical events, resources and reserves that arises when individuals have to manage challenges to their existing behaviour and beliefs. Vulnerability is thus a latent feature of contemporary life (Spini et al., 2017). It is most easily observed when critical events disturb social routines and prevent alignment with normative expectations. In the face of such challenges or ‘stressors’, individuals mobilise a range of economic, social, cognitive and emotional resources to meet the immediate challenge and to avoid the risk of encountering similar threats in the future. However, according to the analytical perspective developed here, vulnerability can also provide the opportunity for innovative behaviour and enable adjustments to existing value systems, including gender norms and stereotypes. It would, therefore, be a mistake to consider vulnerability as a state that individuals seek to avoid at all costs.

Research has shown that the ability to deal with critical events is not dependent only on the quantity and nature of the resources an individual can access at the time of the event. The reserves that a person has been able to accumulate over time may also prove vital for managing life-course transitions (e.g., the birth of a child, graduation, being made redundant, a divorce, a debilitating road accident, a promotion) and mitigating their long-term consequences (Cullati et al., 2018). However, little is known about the transferability of the reserves accumulated in one geographical location to their effective use in another context, which is an issue we wanted to explore further.

In this chapter, we consider various types of spillover among different life domains. On the one hand, these can be related to the impact of an event located in a particular domain on a given individual’s other life spheres, for instance, if an overseas assignment for work leads to the dissolution of a meaningful relationship or if emotional commitment to a nonmobile partner leads to the offer of an overseas assignment being turned down. On the other hand, spillover effects may be located beyond the individual at the level of ‘linked lives’ (Elder, 1998). For example, the career path of a female law graduate in the Global South may be determined by legal restrictions on the international mobility of her mother, who is the main provider of childcare. Finally, spillover effects may be mediated through broader social norms and expectations, beyond the individual or the household, notably when macro-level normative expectations or regulations have practical implications for the configuration of several life domains. For example, the fact that female South American migrants to Switzerland are often assigned to jobs with unsocial hours makes it difficult for migrant couples to maintain their previous (and potentially preferred) ‘traditional’ pattern of division of domestic labour. This is especially true when the male partner fails to secure stable employment in the host country. Thus, due to the gendered labour market opportunities available to different migrant groups, some South American couples come to depend heavily on men’s contribution to housework and childcare, leading them to adapt their previous domestic arrangements and to act in partial contradiction to the normative expectations of the South American and Swiss gender regimes (Seminario, 2011).

In the next sections, we first outline the importance of using an integrated vulnerability perspective to explore experiences of transnational mobility. After briefly presenting our research methods, we focus on the dynamics of vulnerability associated with transnational mobility, the accumulation and conversion of resources across borders, and the potential reconfiguration of gendered norms in the context of spatial displacement and relocation.

An Integrated Vulnerability-Mobility Perspective

The combined notions of vulnerability and mobility provide a useful analytical lens for studying the spillover effects among life domains experienced by different social groups. First, transnational mobility is dependent on multilevel regulation processes (e.g., national immigration laws, occupational recruitment practices and career patterns, normative expectations about moving away or remaining sedentary), which may influence individuals’ ability to manage the interfacing of work and personal life spheres effectively. Second, mobility is a potential source of normative dissonance since individuals may pass through national, local, professional, or conjugal environments in which expectations differ somewhat from those they were initially socialised to ‘accept as normal’ in a previous context. Within a complex ‘configuration of dispositions to act and dispositions to believe’ (Lahire, 2002, p. 336), mobile individuals have to navigate a succession of normative environments and manage the uncertainties associated with a plurality of gender norms (Ackers, 2004; Levy & Widmer, 2013). Third, mobility raises questions regarding the accumulation or depletion of resources over time and individuals’ ability to conserve or convert these resources across national and cultural boundaries. Analysing work and life trajectories that include limited or extended periods of spatial mobility enables us to understand the reconfiguration of resources and reserves at the micro-, meso- and macrosocial levels. Spatial displacement may therefore produce specific forms of spillover that may, in turn, be associated with particular configurations of vulnerability. Likewise, mobility may also open up opportunities for innovative social practices and normative adjustments that may exacerbate or protect against vulnerability processes in different life domains.

Historically, different types of spatial mobility have been treated in largely separate studies and have been associated with differential risks of vulnerability. Expatriation has often been represented as temporary and reversible, while migration has been viewed as durable and unidirectional (Al Ariss & Crowley-Henry, 2013). The transnational mobility of ‘highly qualified’ or ‘highly skilled migrants’ is often associated with the accumulation of economic, social and symbolic resources and capital and individuals with more pronounced ‘cosmopolitan’ dispositions (Bühlmann et al., 2013). In sharp contrast to the ‘hypermobile cosmopolitans’, who are supposed to move voluntarily to advance their careers or self-development, the literature is rife with stereotypical representations of the ‘vulnerable’ migrant, who is forced to move and to experience the resulting depletion of socioeconomic and cultural resources.

The analytical pertinence of this distinction among different types of spatial mobility is being increasingly questioned (Hercog & Sandoz, 2018). The emergence of hybrid mobility practices, such as ‘self-initiated expatriation’ (Doherty et al., 2013) or ‘circulatory migration’ (Hugo, 2013), has led to the blurring of the analytical distinctions among different types of mobility and between ‘mobile’ or ‘sedentary’ individuals or groups (Anderson, 2019). Since transnational mobility has become a normative requirement in many professional occupations (Montulet & Mincke, 2019), it can no longer be interpreted solely as a voluntary, individual career strategy (Cangià, 2019; Sautier, 2021). It thus follows that the challenges posed by the geographical relocation of those commonly considered to be moving under ‘privileged’ circumstances can be addressed in similar terms to those that previously prevailed in the broad field of migration studies (Ravasi et al., 2015). Likewise, analysis of the material and symbolic resources accumulated over time by geographically mobile individuals in their host and home countries (Repetti et al., 2021; Seminario & Le Feuvre, 2021b) provides a clearer understanding of the circulation of risks, resources and protections, across national borders and between generations, over the entire life course. The cultural challenges posed by return migration practices can be apprehended with the analytical tools initially developed to study the cumulative dis/advantages associated with corporate expatriation (Davoine et al., 2018).

The burgeoning literature on transnational careers (Joy et al., 2020), transnational families (Baldassar & Merla, 2013), transnational social networks for specific social groups (Cousin & Chauvin, 2014; Chimienti et al., 2018) and global care chains (Hochschild, 2014) reflects the increasingly integrated approach to mobility as a social practice that has inspired our LIVES research program. We focused on mobile people with varied levels of skills and qualifications, including assigned and self-initiated expatriates, artists, diplomats, foreign graduates, early career stage academics, onward migrants and highly skilled refugees. In line with the analytical framework developed by LIVES (see Spini & Widmer, in this volume), we avoided considering certain types of mobility as a particular source of vulnerability or certain mobile individuals as being necessarily more vulnerable than others. Instead, we examined the challenges associated with any form of geographical displacement and sought to understand how different categories of mobile (and sedentary) people deal with particular critical events. Our research was inspired by an intersectional perspective and sought to understand how different dimensions of social stratification (e.g., gender, sexual orientation, class and ethnicity) facilitate or hinder such responses and influence their consequences over time.

Research Methods

The research presented in this chapter incorporated a mixed methods design, combining quantitative and qualitative data collection tools. All of the studies used biographical interviews in conjunction with a series of complementary data collection tools, including face-to-face or online surveys, adapted versions of the LIVES life-event calendars (see Berchtold & Morselli in this volume; Morselli et al., 2016), dyadic couple interviews, focus groups, ego-centred network analysis, occupational case studies or ethnographic observations. Beyond their specific research questions, all studies aimed to understand the interplay among transnational mobility, national and occupation-level gender regimes (Boni-Le Goff & Le Feuvre, 2017) and gender arrangements at different stages of the life course. The studies highlighted the differentiated effects of transnational mobility on gendered vulnerabilities and sought to shed light on the complexity of spillover effects both among life domains and among individuals whose mobile lives are ‘linked’ in some way.

This chapter builds on this analytical framework to address three distinct research questions, which all explore a spillover effect of some kind. In the first section, we consider the role of spatial mobility in the requirement that individuals navigate a range of potentially divergent normative gender regimes in the course of their mobile life course. In a second section, we address the accumulation or depletion of material and symbolic resources as individuals move among a range of geographical locations over time. Finally, we provide empirical evidence of the impact of spatial mobility on the ability of individuals and households to deal with critical events and to recover from these in the course of their successive relocations.

Navigating Normative Gender Regimes across Time and Space

Transnationally mobile individuals have to navigate different normative environments that may hold a variety of implications, both for the spillover effects among different life domains and for the influence of critical events that affect one individual on the vulnerability of other household members, particularly an intimate partner or spouse. Our research focused particularly on the potentially divergent gender norms associated with the different contexts that our mobile respondents navigate in the course of their adult lives. This issue is framed through the notion of a ‘gender regime’ (Connell, 1987), defined as the normative environments that shape gendered aspirations, expectations and representations in a given historical and societal context (Le Feuvre, 2010). This definition implies that in different national contexts, particular gender arrangements are preferred over others, and that people are actively encouraged to conform to these norms through a variety of material and symbolic mechanisms (e.g., taxation systems, availability of childcare facilities, shop opening hours, working time arrangements, cultural representations of motherhood) that tend to reinforce dominant value systems and stereotypes. Conformity to these arrangements is associated with a series of rewards, and aspirations for an alternative lifestyle may be difficult to enact (Bühlmann et al., 2010) or may come at great material, symbolic or emotional cost to the individuals concerned (Le Feuvre, 1999).

Previous research has acknowledged the diversity of these normative gender arrangements, which are usually defined with the help of typologies, each designed to highlight a particular aspect of the gender differentiation process (e.g., welfare regimes, care regimes, family regimes). Previous studies have demonstrated the forceful character of national-level gender contracts (Connell, 1987) and gender cultures (Pfau-Effinger, 1998), which are usually characterised according to the legitimacy given to women’s labour market participation, particularly in the presence of young children. Western gender regimes typically range from a ‘dual earner/dual carer’ model, promoted in some Nordic countries, to a ‘male breadwinner/female carer’ model, characteristic of Western European countries with a historically strong manufacturing base (e.g., Germany, Austria, Switzerland). The Nordic gender regime is based on a universal, ‘adult worker’ model of social integration, with limited reciprocal influence of the life chances of men and women, even when they live together and share parenthood. This relative autonomy is guaranteed by the widespread provision of publicly funded services to support individuals in the management of their ‘work-life interface’, with the explicit aim of reducing social inequalities. By contrast, the ‘male breadwinner/female carer’ model of gender relations, based on highly differentiated social roles or ‘master status’, (Krüger & Levy, 2001) for men and women, depends more on the married couple as a basic unit of social integration and regulation and implies a greater degree of interdependence and mutual influence of the life paths of those individuals who enter into intimate relationships, adopt common living arrangements and share parental responsibilities. Such is also the case for the ‘modified male breadwinner’ model that has emerged in some European countries, based on women’s large-scale integration into employment but on a part-time and/or discontinuous basis across the life course (Crompton, 1999), thereby leading to particular risks of vulnerability for women in later life (Le Feuvre et al., 2015). Fourth, the so-called ‘Mediterranean’ gender regime (Sanchez-Mira & O’Reilly, 2019) extends the perimeter of mutual dependence beyond the conjugal unit to impose reciprocal duties or care and subsistence within the extended family network, with only limited support provided by the state. Finally, the so-called ‘Liberal’ model of social protection, prevalent in the US and the UK, combines the individualistic rationale of the Nordic model with an assurance-based provision of social services, thereby leading to greater diversity in the ability of individuals to reduce their dependence on their spouse and close family members for support and higher levels of social inequality (Scott et al., 2010; Daly, 2020).

Other regions are obviously characterised by even more diverse normative gender regimes, and these regimes have considerable consequences for the conditions under which individuals experience spatial displacement, particularly at ‘critical’ moments in the life course, such as the transition to parenthood (Le Goff & Levy, 2016), divorce, widowhood or retirement (Oesch, 2008; Repetti et al., 2021). Navigating diverse normative environments is a clear challenge for transnationally mobile individuals and constitutes a potential source of uncertainty and vulnerability for individuals, couples and families (Tissot, 2020).

Furthermore, recent research has stressed that, within a given national context, different occupations may selectively integrate and adapt elements of these societal-level ‘gender regimes’ into their specific recruitment, remuneration and promotion practices, thus creating meso-level variation in the normative expectations placed on male and female workers (Le Feuvre, 2010; Boni-Le Goff & Le Feuvre, 2017). For example, research has shown that multinational companies located in Switzerland have developed a range of measures to support expatriate dual-career couples (Salamin & Davoine, 2015). These measures are generally appreciated by the internationally mobile staff of these companies, who are able to escape many of the constraints placed on the parents of young children in the Swiss context, where the majority of mothers still exit the labour market or drastically reduce their working hours (Bühlmann et al., 2010). Nonetheless, the adoption of specifically ‘expat’ gender arrangements may significantly damage the ability of these mobile individuals to establish links with the local population and to adapt to the normative environment of the host country (Ravasi et al., 2015). In turn, this lack of integration may make it difficult for the members of these expatriate dual-career couples to overcome certain critical events (e.g., the illness of a spouse or child, divorce, redundancy), thereby leading to an exacerbated form of vulnerability through nonconformity to the local gender regime.

Exploring the ways in which mobile individuals navigate and negotiate the potentially convergent or divergent normative environments through which they pass is central to the research programme developed here. While some colleagues in LIVES have used the notion of ‘misleading norms’ (Widmer & Spini, 2017) to capture the long-term (negative) consequences of conformity to specific gender norms, our intention has been, rather, to understand how people adapt to the different normative environments through which they may pass in the course of their mobile lives (Carlson & Schneickert, 2021; Mozetič, 2018; Eastmond, 2011). We are interested not only in the long-term vulnerabilities associated with adherence to the dominant norms in a specific time and place but also in the challenges and stressors associated with the potential mismatch between the gender norms to which people were expected to conform in one particular context (country, occupation, company) at a particular point in their life course and those that prevail in the other spaces to or through which they subsequently move (Nedelcu, 2012).

These adjustment processes are often mediated through macro-level social structures. A study conducted with highly qualified Syrian refugees in Switzerland (Cangià et al., 2021) illustrated the effect of their legal status on their experiences of gender norms and family life in the host country. It is well documented that refugees face the risk of downwards mobility and status loss as a result of forced migration. These changes in their professional life are often accompanied by their encounter with quite different gender arrangements than those experienced in their home country (Kirk, 2010). Contrary to popular belief, the gender norms that regulate women’s access to the labour market in the Swiss context are not necessarily more progressive than those experienced before migration (Bermudez, 2013). Refugees from middle-class backgrounds who had a stable professional life before their departure from Syria are sometimes confronted with more conservative gender expectations in their host country (Jansen, 2008). Thus, male Syrian refugees to Switzerland frequently report having lost financial independence, something that was closely associated with their social status and gender identity before migration. The experiences of female Syrian refugees are more ambivalent. Most of our respondents had an independent and successful professional career before forced migration. Their discovery of the Swiss gender regime is unexpected and challenging. On the one hand, these women recognise that, in certain life domains (e.g., marital arrangements, contraception, parenthood), they have potentially more freedom in Switzerland than in Syria. On the other hand, they are often confronted with restrictions to their professional careers due to gender stereotyping that is aggravated by their refugee status. Women who were formerly lawyers, medical doctors, engineers or civil servants in Syria are often encouraged by Swiss social workers to lower their professional ambitions and to accept the kinds of jobs to which migrant women are usually assigned, specifically in the care and hospitality sectors (Seminario, 2011, 2018a). This revision of their career expectations has obvious implications for their domestic arrangements, especially when the delegation of daily household duties to paid domestic staff or extended family members is no longer a viable option.

The Conversion of Resources across National Borders

The transnational mobility of highly skilled migrants—especially for those coming from the Global North—is often seen as a positive experience leading to the accumulation of resources and skills and thus the constitution of long-term reserves (Cullati et al., 2018). It is often assumed that certain forms of transnational mobility can buffer against stressors and thus reduce vulnerability processes. Successive experiences of migration or travel, transnational social (i.e., family and friendship) networks, foreign-language skills, and internationally recognised educational qualifications may all constitute ‘resources’ that can be mobilised in numerous contexts and that may constitute ‘cosmopolitan predispositions’ that favour future mobility.

However, not all forms of mobility are associated with the accumulation of material and symbolic resources (Amit, 2011; Salazar & Smart, 2011). There is increasing recognition of the multiple vulnerabilities associated with geographical displacement, even for the most privileged members of society. One of the major challenges encountered by geographically mobile individuals is the recognition of their previous qualifications and experiences in the country of settlement (Iredale, 2001; Joy et al., 2020). Thus, highly qualified corporate expatriates do not always benefit from the subsequent recognition of the skills acquired during their missions abroad, even when they remain within the same company (Davoine et al., 2018). The mismatch between previously acquired resources and the requirements of the new environment is a challenge faced by many geographically mobile individuals and often reduces their ability to mobilise their previously accumulated cultural, social and economic resources to mitigate stressors and overcome critical events. Several empirical studies have enabled us to identify a potential barrier to the constitution of reserves on the part of geographically mobile individuals. Even within the same company, language skills or professional networks are not easy to transfer from one subsidiary to another. The development of informal transnational professional networks within companies can facilitate these transfers (Davoine et al., 2018), but women often find it harder to access such networks, which are usually designed primarily by and for men.

Not all resources that have been accumulated in different societal contexts are as effective for overcoming the ‘stressors’ associated with biographical events in subsequent spatial settings. In turn, variations in the transnational conversion and sustainability of previously accumulated resources have important implications for the spillover effects of geographical displacement, both among the different life spheres of mobile individuals and among individuals whose mobile lives are ‘linked’ in some way.

Critical Life Events on the Move

Previous research has explored the implications of transnational relocation for managing the work-life interface, particularly regarding family formation patterns and gender equality issues (Cangià et al., 2019; Riaño & Baghdadi, 2007). This work has stressed the implications of the geographical displacement of one individual for the lives of other family members. A similar ‘linked lives’ perspective has been used in the field of highly skilled migration or expatriation research to analyse the influence of international career mobility on the life chances and career perspectives of partners or other close relatives (Mancini-Vonlanthen, 2021; Salamin & Hanappi, 2014), who may not necessarily conform to the common image of the ‘trailing spouse’ (Cangià, 2018; Davoine et al., 2013).

In our LIVES research, we used biographical interviews and life-event calendars to explore how men and women redefine and reconfigure their priorities, preferences and practices at different stages of their mobile life course (Seminario, 2018b; Mancini-Vonlanthen, 2021). For example, previous research has explored the gendered dimension of transnational mobility and has identified the ‘mobility imperative’ as a potential source of inequality (Schaer et al., 2017; Jöns, 2011). Most professional occupations define career paths and expectations based on the symbolic figure of the ‘care-less’ male (Lynch, 2010). Highly skilled workers, particularly those singled out for recognition and promotion, are expected to be entirely free of care and domestic commitments and therefore entirely ‘free to move’ as the company requires. This presumption often creates a bias against (married) women. On the one hand, due to the persistently unequal gender division of domestic labour, women are more likely than their male counterparts to be spatially ‘rooted’ by care duties, including geographically localised access to informal support networks (Viry et al., 2015). On the other hand, even when they are single and childless, women are perceived as being ‘potentially tied down’ by the domestic and care duties that they are expected to have at some point in the future.

However, there is a dynamic aspect of these normative expectations. In most European countries, women are increasingly being given the opportunity to develop their skills and career opportunities through corporate expatriation schemes. Nevertheless, as Salamin (2021) has shown, the relative ‘advantage’ these women enjoy in comparison to their married counterparts may have negative spillover effects on their ability to establish durable intimate relationships and to satisfy their own parental aspirations. In the host country, single female expatriates may be expected to accept long hours precisely because they have no ‘legitimate reason’ to benefit from any existing family-friendly policies. As a result, they may find it hard to adapt to the normative rhythm of local life and thus may be excluded from opportunities to socialise, build up friendship networks and eventually meet a potential partner. The advantages of being single and childless for the accumulation of professional skills may thus translate, over time, into disadvantages for the realisation of personal goals (Salamin, 2021), illustrating one possible configuration of the spillover effect between life domains.

Furthermore, despite significant shifts in the gender division of domestic labour in most Western societies over the past several decades (Sullivan & Gershuny, 2016), the ideal figure of the ‘unencumbered’ male worker continues to be opposed to the archetypical ‘trailing female spouse’, who is expected to follow and support the mobile male partner as he moves around the globe to enhance his career chances and accumulate resources (Callan & Ardener, 1984). However, the increase in women’s share of self-initiated and corporate expatriation and an increase in dual-career couple configurations (Salamin, 2021) is challenging the traditional vision of transnational mobility as an unequivocal ‘resource’ for men and an inevitable source of ‘vulnerability’ for women. Some studies have recognised the growing presence of ‘dual-career couples’ in which both partners negotiate their work trajectories to continue their careers on the move (Mancini-Vonlanthen, 2021). In such cases, the experience of transnational mobility can prevent women from pursuing an independent career (Cooke, 2001; Vohlídalová, 2017), but it can also challenge previously established ‘conservative’ gender arrangements (Coles & Fechter, 2012; Cangià et al., 2019).

For example, a study of internationally mobile couples currently working in Switzerland identified the importance of a ‘sense of belonging to a dual-career couple’ (Mancini-Vonlanthen, 2021, p. 25) in determining interviewees’ career outcomes. This study of sixteen heterosexual couples with at least one partner on an academic career path showed how a shared and long-term commitment to egalitarian gender arrangements within these households acted as a resource that might buffer the risks of professional downgrading otherwise faced by the female members of these internationally mobile couples. In a similar vein, other studies have revealed the pragmatic strategy of prioritising the job opportunities of whichever partner can enable the couple best to avoid the inherent precariousness of the geographically mobile postdoc period. In this case, mobility decisions are made, and some job offers are even refused, on the explicit understanding that neither partner should have to ‘sacrifice’ his or her career for the sake of ‘the family’ (Bataille et al., 2017).

Likewise, a qualitative study of men and women accompanying their professionally mobile partners to China and Switzerland has shown that male partners sometimes support the international career ambitions of their female spouse by quitting their jobs and taking care of the children (Suter & Cangià, 2020). Similar ‘couple strategies’ or domestic arrangements have been observed in the German and Swiss contexts (Tissot, 2020). Some men struggle to find employment in the destination country, where they may start to experience the work-family interface in new and alternative ways, leading to a durable revision of the couples’ gender arrangements. However, the role of ‘accompanying spouse’ does not always open up such opportunities for revising gender norms. Sometimes, apparently transgressive practices, such as the male partner ‘following’ a female spouse abroad, are renormalised through the definition of an exclusively male ‘trailing spouse’ repertoire. In a study of the spouses accompanying Swiss diplomats on foreign assignments, Davoine and his colleagues noted that male spouses rarely took charge of the daily household management, whereas this was a particularly common option for their female counterparts. These men tended to emphasise their specific role in providing moral and psychological support and sometimes protection to their female partners, thus recasting their atypical behaviour in line with gender stereotypes (Davoine et al., 2013).

This capacity for realigning transgressive gender initiatives with the normative expectations of the host country was confirmed by the results of a study of Peruvian men and women who had earned a degree from a Swiss higher education institution (Seminario & Le Feuvre, 2021a, 2021b). The biographical data collected from interviews with these highly skilled migrants revealed the role of national migration policies in determining gender-differentiated career outcomes in the host country, even when migrants hold Swiss qualifications (see also Riaño & Baghdadi, 2007). In Switzerland, foreign graduates can benefit from a 6-month visa extension to secure stable employment with the active patronage of a potential employer. This extension clause is well suited to the usual timing of recruitment processes in the least feminised sectors of the Swiss labour market, notably for engineering graduates, who are in high demand. Male migrants who follow a typically masculine educational route are therefore advantaged by the visa extension clause and benefit from employer sponsorship, irrespective of their domestic arrangements or parental status. In contrast, women graduating from the most feminised educational fields (social sciences, social work, etc.) are less likely to receive the required patronage within the given period. They usually have to pass through a series of extended ‘school-to-work transition’ phases, including unpaid work placements, before securing a permanent job. Because of the mismatch between Swiss migration laws and these gendered recruitment processes, migrant female graduates are less likely than their male counterparts to receive a job offer within the 6-month visa extension period. They are therefore much more dependent on the alternative ‘family reunification’ route into permanent resident status in Switzerland. However, for these women, marriage to a Swiss or European national represents an uncertain route to eventually securing a job that is congruent with their educational credentials. According to the domestic arrangements adopted within their binational households, family reunification measures can represent a potential threat to career success for these highly qualified female migrants: ‘The more unequal the organisation of domestic care work within their households, the less likely [these women are] to benefit from the stability and extended time scale provided by family reunification measures to consolidate their transition to the upper reaches of the Swiss labour market’ (Seminario & Le Feuvre, 2021a, 2021b, p. 224).

This example provides a good illustration of the potential variation in spillover effects according to the gendered impact of macro-level regulations on men and women. On the one hand, men who graduate from highly masculinised fields of study succeed in their transition to the labour market independently of their domestic arrangements (and not, as the literature often suggests, thanks to the domestic support of their female partners). They experience no family-employment spillover effect (Seminario & Le Feuvre 2021a, 2021b). On the other hand, this effect is vital for female graduates: Being in a stable relationship and accepting marriage to a Swiss or European national is both a necessary condition for them to remain in Switzerland long enough to secure employment and (at the same time) a potential hindrance to their career progression. In other words, the spillover effect of educational credentials on the professional careers of male and female graduates is unevenly mediated by macro-level migration regulations and by their respective domestic arrangements.

Conclusions

This chapter proposes a multilevel perspective on mobility and vulnerability, with a special focus on the gender dynamics that emerge at the interface of professional and family life. It has considered the potential effects of geographical relocation on the spillover among life domains and among individuals whose lives are linked in some way. We have used transnational mobility as a lens through which to explore the impact that an event in a particular domain can exert on an individual’s engagement in other life spheres. However, we have also been attentive to the spillover effects that are located beyond the individual life path, particularly within professional careers and domestic arrangements. We have seen how spillover effects may be mediated through broader social norms and expectations, beyond the individual or the household. The case of transnational mobility seems especially interesting in this regard, considering that mobility may potentially create normative dissonance as individuals move from one social context to another.

Our studies have explored vulnerability in the life course of populations who experienced self-initiated expatriation and corporate assignments that are not usually associated with the challenges of forced migration (Hercog & Sandoz, 2018). We have stressed the complex interplay of subjective values and structural constraints in determining the ability of men and women to resist relegation to ‘traditional’ gender roles at strategic points in the life course, particularly after a critical event. We have confirmed the need to reject the binary distinction between ‘unequal’ and ‘egalitarian’ domestic arrangements in life-course research (Känsälä et al., 2015). Our results suggest that, particularly in the case of geographically mobile individuals, commitment to a particular set of gender norms and the adoption of specific gender arrangements are not determined only once but rather emerge in line with ‘opportunity factors’ (e.g., job offers, equal-opportunity measures at the national or occupational level, availability and cost of support for dual-career couples) encountered in the local environments through which individuals pass at specific, more-or-less critical moments in their life course.

Thus, we have explored the potentially diverse effects of geographical displacement on both the domestic arrangements and the career paths of geographically mobile individuals. We have confirmed that, irrespective of the ‘voluntary’ or ‘constrained’ nature of transnational mobility, it is a potential source of vulnerability that poses challenges of adjustment, integration and resource conversion or depletion. However, our empirical studies have also revealed that mobility does not inevitably reinforce conventional gender norms and practices. Although some forms of geographical displacement may be associated with the ‘traditionalisation’ of gender arrangements, our empirical studies stress the variety of potential outcomes, including atypical gender configurations, that are associated with the uncertainties and unpredictable nature of life on the move.