A new paper published by the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology explores the factors behind dual-earning couples’ willingness to relocate abroad.
Partner and career role salience
In particular, this study takes into account the extent to which employees and their spouses identify with and attach value to: 1) being a good partner (= partner role salience); and 2) their career (career role salience).
Willingness to follow…
Results showed that an employee’s willingness to accept a relocation depended primarily on their spouse’s willingness to follow. Whether spouses were indeed willing to follow, depended on how much they value their career in combination with how strongly they identify with being a good partner.
Who makes exceptions?
The more value spouses attached to their career, the less likely they were to follow. However, this effect disappeared when spouses also highly valued their role as a partner. That is, when both career and partner role salience were high, spouses were more likely to follow. This suggests that spouses who strongly identify with being a good partner and who value their career strongly, recognise the importance of an international job opportunity for their partner.
Needs of the partner
The results furthermore suggest spouses high in partner role salience have an increased susceptibility of the needs of their partner: When spouses identified strongly with being a good partner, they were more willing to follow if the employee attached great value to his/her career.
Photo: co-researcher of the study, Kim van Erp
