Massey PhD graduate and tutor Dr Jo Mutter.
Massey University PhD graduate Dr Jo Mutter has spent long periods over many years solo parenting her two children. Hers is one of a growing number of “stay-behind families”, where partners choose the stability and safety of home over the expatriate lifestyle of a “trailing spouse”.
Her husband Tony Mutter is a professional sailor and two-time winner of the Volvo Ocean Race. While he made it to his wife’s graduation ceremony last week, the following day he flew to Brazil to compete in leg nine of the 2017-18 race. Dr Mutter, as usual, is watching his progress from afar.
Writing her PhD thesis on the impact global mobility has on families has been a very personal experience. “My husband’s career means he gets paid to go sailing, he is living his calling,” she says. “I can’t deny someone I love that.
“But it’s not always easy – it has an impact on your career and sometimes you suffer from role overload. Yet most stay-at-home parents in this situation feel sorry for their partner because they miss out on so much, especially their children growing up.”
Dr Mutter says global mobility is a growing trend that applies far beyond the world of professional sport. Businesses are increasingly sending staff to offshore locations, either to work on short-term projects, as commuters (where the employee has a roster of away and at-home time), or as frequent international travellers.
“Many companies are entering emerging markets and people often don’t want to move their families due to security and other risks,” she says. “By keeping the family at home, they are choosing social and educational stability for their children.”
Technology now makes it easier for families to stay in touch when a parent is based overseas.
Sacrifices and benefits
In return, stay-at-home partners often make sacrifices in terms of their own careers and, more often than not, the stay-at-home partner is the mother.
“There’s always exceptions, but let’s be honest, in most places around the world the male career is still prioritised over the female career,” Dr Mutter says. “Women’s careers are generally affected when they become mothers, but in a global mobility context the impact goes on for much longer.”
She says women with globally mobile partners take longer to return to the workforce after having a child, and when they do, they need to find work that offers “personalised flexibility”.
“The standard type of flexibility that is increasingly offered by employers, like starting and finishing early, doesn’t work for them. These women don’t want flexibility within a day, they want to be able to work long hours when their partner is at home and short hours when they are solo parenting.”
Dr Mutter says the women in her study with successful careers were either self-employed, had built their careers around contract work, or had long-term employment relationships and were able to negotiate the flexibility they needed.
The impact on the children of stay-at-home families is less than you might think, she says. Technology has made it much easier to keep in contact, and as long as there is a consistent routine, the children are generally happy.
“In many ways, the most difficult time for children is when the traveller returns home, because that is the break from their usual routine,” she says.
“After hearing the interviews with their children, my research participants were amazed to realise their kids were not concerned about having a globally-mobile parent. A number of them were like,’Oh my God, it’s not affecting them at all!’”
Stay-behind families need more support
Dr Mutter believes that organisations could do more to support the families of globally-mobile employees, including providing a central point of contact for assistance and creating an “empathetic network” for stay-behind partners.
“Support networks are really important because other partners understand the situation you are in. Most people are hesitant to ask their other friends to help because they feel they can’t reciprocate,” she says. “There’s no reason why, say, Fonterra couldn’t facilitate introductions between the partners of travelling staff members, or to even create an online forum for partners to connect with each other.”
Dr Mutter believes stay-at-home families should receive employer support in the way expatriate families do.
“Stay-behind families could be offered a travel budget to visit the traveller, for example, or have data or mobile phone costs covered,” she says. “It would take a shift in corporate culture, but substantial time off at home after a period overseas would also be great for families. People change their employment situation if their family is not happy.”