Saying no to being uprooted: The impact of family and gender on willingness to relocate

Abstract

Although career research contends that women managers and professionals are less willing than men to relocate, much of the previous research has been either limited by comparative sampling issues, or has not fully accounted for the role of family. To address these issues we gathered survey data from managers and professionals in 102 large companies by identifying pairs of individuals from each firm who worked in the same division, location, and functional area, who were similar in age (^5 years), yet differed in gender -resulting in a comparatively matched sample of 333 male and 333 female respondents. To account for the role of family, we tested a model that first controlled for the impact of previous determinants of willingness to relocate, and then examined the impact of four family attributes including spouse's contribution to family income, presence of preschool-aged children at home, and the perceived strength of spouse's and children's community ties. We also examined the moderating role of gender in explaining the impact of these attributes. Results indicate that the inclusion of family attributes increased the amount of variance explained in our regression model. Moreover, beyond substantiating a significant main effect for gender -that is, women managers are less willing to relocate -we also found that gender interacts with family attributes to further dampen a woman's willingness to relocate.

Different Reasons, Different Results: Implications of Migration by Gender and Family Status

“…For previous generations, the gender gap in migration outcomes is unsurprising, and women's greater willingness to follow a partner who took a new job in another city has been well demonstrated (Baldridge et al 2006;Bielby and Bielby 1992;Shihadeh 1991). Higher rates of overeducation among employed women in smaller labor markets (Büchel 2000;Büchel and van Ham 2003) are evidence that even today, women are much more likely than men to be tied movers.…”

Categorizing Married Couple Expected Employment Prioritization in the Post-Recession United States

“…Level of support for prioritizing spouses' employment was measured as expected level of support for family mobility for a job opportunity, measurement that is consistent with previous research on career prioritization (e.g., Baldridge, Eddleston, and Veiga, 2006;Bielby and Bielby, 1992). Employed respondents were queried about the extent to which they would possibly relocate for their spouse's employment (or their spouse would relocate for their employment) using the prompt described below.…”

“…Because of the cultural construction of gender, this bargaining process can also reflect gendered privilege. Historically husbands have generally been able to mobilize their greater resources to prioritize their careers (encouraging specialization in the home), including relocating the family for job opportunities (Baldridge, Eddleston, and Veiga, 2006;Bielby and Bielby, 1992;Hardill et al, 1997;Shauman and Noonan, 2006). Bargaining theory would predict that married individuals' preferences would reflect the ability of the spouse holding greater relative resources (e.g., educational attainment, occupational prestige, and/or age), and thus more power, to achieve ends that benefit them.…”

Gender differences in the family-relatedness of relocation decisions

“…Especially for relocation decisions, family structure and the spouse's characteristics have fundamental roles (Baldridge, Eddleston, & Veiga, 2006;Bielby & Bielby, 1992). In building our conceptual model (see Fig.…”