This paper uncovers language-related issues that skilled female migrants face and what their strategies are to (re-)build their careers after migrating. Using an inductive, interpretative research methodology, the author conducted 19 in-depth interviews with skilled German women who had migrated to France. Contrary to the findings of extant research, the study revealed that host country language proficiency played a minor role in the migration motivation, choice of destination, and labor market integration in this sample. However, the informants’ mother tongue (German) and their proficiency in English were perceived as competitive advantages when it came to integrating into the labor market. For some, these particular language skills even led to a conscious change of career. The findings demonstrate that language proficiency goes beyond grammatical mastery but relates, more importantly, to culture-sensitive communication skills underlining the importance of investigating language associated with the concept of culture. This study contributes to the language-related literature on international migration by combining different strands of research and levels of analysis to obtain a more holistic picture of the complex impact of language and its culture-relatedness.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.