Contact : MAPS -Maison d'analyse des processus sociauxRue A.-L. Breguet 1 CH -2000 Neuchâtel Tél. +41 32 718 39 34 www2.unine.ch/maps maps.info@unine.ch La reproduction, transmission ou traduction de tout ou partie de cette publication est autorisée pour des activités à but non lucratif ou pour l'enseignement et la recherche. Dans les autres cas, la permission de la MAPS est requise. ISSN : 1662-744X AbstractToday, transnational mobility is often presented as indispensable for a successful academic career. This institutionalisation of transnational mobility for young academics has important effects in (re)producing or transforming gender inequalities. Building on the results of a qualitative study conducted at three universities -Zurich (Switzerland), UCLA (USA), and Cambridge (UK) -this paper examines the mobility experiences of early-career academics and their partners and seeks to understand the mechanisms underlying mobility patterns, including the ways in which they are gendered. Drawing on three case studies, this paper focuses on the gendered negotiations and arrangements of mobile couples. Each case study represents a different ideal-typical pattern of how gender is entangled with mobility. We show how gender is 'done' and 'undone' by the academics and their partners throughout these mobility trajectories, and how these couples' negotiations and practices are closely entangled with gender representations that are structurally anchored in labour markets and discursively expressed within the wider social environment. As such, this paper not only contributes to the academic literature by shedding light on a particular type of gendered highly skilled mobility, but also questions the dichotomy between economic men and social and cultural women sometimes reproduced in studies on highly skilled migration. Furthermore, the findings challenge earlier studies that suggest a causal link between mobility and the leaky pipeline by showing that important transformations with regard to gender relations are occurring and that mobility does not inevitably reinforce conventional gender practices.

Previous studies have pointed out the highly gendered character of academia in general and international mobility in particular: women academics are confronted with a ‘glass ceiling’, and they are less geographically mobile than men, mainly as a result of family obligations. This paper examines whether gender plays twice a role in how women and men consider family arrangements in regard to a long-term post-PhD period of transnational mobility. Using data from an online survey and face-to-face interviews at the Universities of Cambridge and Zurich, we focus first on family configurations when academics decide to become mobile, then on how the family arrangements evolve while abroad. We show that the transnational mobility of academics has become more complex and varied than the ‘classical model’ of mobile academic men and non-mobile or ‘tied mover’ women. While having a child continues to impact gender roles, institutional characteristics in the context of mobility also play a role that needs to be further analysed.

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