CAREER STRATEGIES AND SPATIAL MOBILITY AMONG SKILLED MIGRANTS IN GERMANY: THE ROLE OF GENDER IN THE WORK-FAMILY INTERACTION

This paper aims to unravel the gendered career strategies of skilled migrants in Germany's financial and academic sectors. Such careers are being developed not only in tandem, but also often in negotiation, with gender relations in the family. Much of the existing literature in skilled migration studies has concentrated on the principal migrant and work-related context, treating the family as a rather secondary terrain. Drawing on participant observation and interviews, this paper shows that these two terrains, work and family, are closely interrelated in building skilled migrant workers' career pathways. My analysis of the experiences of migrant, dual-career couples shows that their transnational career strategies have a strong bearing on the fine balancing act and negotiation of intra-family gender relations, which are neither pre-given nor fixed. Key to understanding their strategies are migrants' transnationalising cultural capital, access to childcare provision, a life-stage perspective, and the role of dual-career policies.