Can the trailing spouse phenomenon be explained by employer recruitment choices?

Abstract

It is well known that couples tend to relocate for the sake of the man's career rather than the woman's, also known as the “trailing spouse phenomenon.” The role of employer choices in this process is unknown however. If employers are hesitant to make job offers to women who live a long way from the workplace (e.g., because of work–family balance concerns or a perceived risk that they will not follow through on their applications, or stay hired if employed), this tendency might constitute an underlying mechanism behind the moving premium of partnered men. Ours is the first study to empirically test whether employers prefer geographically distant men over geographically distant women. We sent applications for 1,410 job openings in the Swedish labour market, randomly assigning gender and parental status to otherwise equivalent applications from cohabiting or married women and men and recorded employer callbacks to these. The results indicate that employers in general tend to disfavour job applicants who live a long way from the employer's workplace. This tendency is stronger for women, both for mothers and for women with no children. Our estimated effects are imprecise but clearly suggest that employer recruitment choices contribute to the trailing spouse phenomenon by offering men a larger pool of geographically distant jobs. We call for more research on this hitherto ignored mechanism behind the trailing spouse phenomenon.

Love in motion: Migration patterns of internationally mobile couples

“…In addition, under a life course perspective, it would also be possible to account for the specific roles of love and emotions for understanding decisions of couples (Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009) as well as for societal change and changing social values (Smits, Mulder, & Hooimeijer, 2004). It is also possible to include aspects of family obligations beyond the partner relationship (e.g., care of parents; e.g., Baldassar & Wilding, 2014) as well as possible discrimination effects by employers (Brandén, Bygren, & Gähle, 2018). Thus, a combined approach including human capital and bargaining arguments, aspects of gender roles, as well as the dynamic life course perspective seems to be the most promising conceptualisation for future migration research in general and for analysing migration patterns of internationally mobile couples in particular.…”

Introduction to the special collection on spatial mobility, family dynamics, and gender relations

“…The context-level normative beliefs and structural opportunities in which these decision-making processes are embedded need to be addressed as well. Recent research has tackled some of these contextual factors, including occupational conditions (Shauman and Noonan 2007;Benson 2014), sex-typed occupations (Perales and Vidal 2013), employment discrimination (Brandén, Bygren, and Gähler 2018), social relationships (Mulder 2007;Coulter, van Ham, and Findlay 2016), regional socioeconomic structures (Nisic 2010;Zaiceva 2010;Nisic and Melzer 2016), and welfare institutions and gender cultures (Boyle et al 2001;, among others.…”

‘It's not acceptable for the husband to stay at home': Taking a discourse analytical approach to capture the gendering of work

“…Research in these areas has repeatedly pointed out that geographical mobility is primarily beneficial to the careers of men and often disadvantages the careers of women in a couple (Amcoff & Niedomysl, 2015;Känsälä et al, 2015;Valcour & Tolbert, 2003;Van der Klis & Mulder, 2008). Numerous studies have shown how the 'distinct gender dynamics' (Jöns, 2011) that mobility displays, disadvantage womenboth in terms of access to short-term as well as longterm mobility (e.g., Brandén, Bygren, & Gähler, 2018;Lee, Chua, Miska, & Stahl, 2017;Varma & Russell, 2016;Wheatley, 2013)especially when they have children (Guillaume & Pochic, 2009;Waibel, Aevermann, & Rueger, 2018). Due to these observations and the fact that women tend to work closer to their home to enable them to fulfil their household responsibilities, they have been described as 'spatially entrapped' (Wheatley, 2013, p. 720).…”