Dual-career couples have unique relocation challenges.
Couples career-planning can be challenging under the best of circumstances. When one partner’s occupation requires relocation, it may be difficult to ensure both people can build fulfilling careers. “I do think it’s incumbent on couples to be strategic and have conversations about who is willing to do what,” says Lisa Wolf-Wendel, professor of higher education administration at the University of Kansas and co-author of “The Two-Body Problem: Dual-Career-Couple Hiring Practices in Higher Education.” “It’s quite miserable to move somewhere for one person’s job and the other person isn’t doing something that is satisfying.”
Several professions require relocation.
Moving is the norm in several professions. Military spouses have it particularly rough, since active-duty service members typically move every two to three years, sometimes without much notice. Members of the foreign service also relocate fairly frequently, to countries throughout the world, exposing their families to many unique cultures and labor markets. And when academics snag rare opportunities to research and teach at universities, their partners may find themselves having to pick up and move to far-flung college towns.
Who are accompanying partners?
In active-duty military families, 93 percent of spouses are women, according to the Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families. Their average age is 33, just a few years away from when women tend to reach their peak earning potential. More than a third of professors are partnered to other professors, according to Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research. These couples may find it especially difficult to build mutually satisfying careers, since it’s rare for a university to offer two perfect-match jobs simultaneously. Women who work in academia are more likely than men to be partnered with other people who work in academia; 83 percent of women in the natural sciences are partnered with scientists compared to 54 percent of men.
Accompanying spouses face challenges.
A 2018 executive order noted that being an accompanying military partner “often impairs the spouse’s ability to obtain and maintain employment, and to achieve career goals. Multiple and frequent relocations make it challenging for military spouses to maintain the home front, to comply with licensure and other job requirements, and to obtain adequate childcare.”
Accompanying spouses face employment challenges that include:
· Frequent career disruptions.· Moving to locations without opportunities.
· Incongruent licensing requirements.
Challenge: frequent career disruptions
Changing jobs strategically can lead to career advancement and better pay. Changing jobs haphazardly can have the opposite effect. Accompanying spouses sometimes have to scramble to find new positions after moving, leaving many of them underemployed and underpaid, says Rosalinda Vasquez Maury, director of applied research and analytics at the Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families: “At every new job, you always start at the bottom.” Military spouses tend to be out of work for months every time they move, and that disruption shows up on their resumes, sometimes making hiring managers question their employability, says Elizabeth O’Brien, senior director of the military spouse program at Hiring Our Heroes, a program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
Challenge: moving to locations without opportunities
Partners who accompany academics soon realize that “a lot of institutions of higher education are located in relatively isolated locations where employment opportunities are going to be kind of limited,” says Wolf-Wendel. Similarly, many military bases are more than 50 miles from major urban centers, according to a 2017 Hiring Our Heroes study. Military spouse jobs may be hard to find overseas because some status of forces agreements between the U.S. and nations that host American installations require bases to hire locals instead of American citizens for civilian roles. Moving to a new location may also mean accompanying partners leave their professional networks behind, further hindering their career progression.
Challenge: incongruent licensing requirements
Because requirements related to teaching, health care, law, cosmetology and other industries are not federalized, professionals who need licenses to work may face career setbacks every time they cross state lines. Getting additional training and passing new exams increases the time many accompanying spouses are out of work each time they move, O’Brien says.
Accompanying partners should plan ahead.
Planning is key to making relocation work for accompanying partners, O’Brien says: “Spouses have to own their success.”
Expert advice for accompanying spouses includes:
· Advocating for portability.· Finding remote jobs.
· Tapping into resources.
· Strengthening skills and credentials.
· Negotiating for relevant benefits.
Tip: Advocate for portability.
People with traditional office jobs who have to relocate may be able to convert their roles into remote positions or fulfill them at other branch locations. Retaining skilled employees this way is “good for the company and the worker,” O’Brien says. “We need military spouses to advocate and need companies to be open to that advocacy.”
Tip: Find a remote job.
For maximum flexibility, consider jobs that allow employees to work remotely. Thanks to digital technology, these kinds of roles are more plentiful than ever in a variety of industries. Several websites are designed specifically to advertise remote jobs, such as Remote.co, We Work Remotely and FlexJobs.
Tip: Tap into resources.
Accompanying spouses should take advantage of resources offered by organizations and associations designed to help them meet their employment goals. For example, the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium helps academics and their partners find appropriate jobs in several regions across the U.S. Hiring Our Heroes has recruited dozens of companies to commit to hiring military spouses. The organization also offers fellowships, job fairs and other resources designed to help that population. Thanks to that executive order, government agencies are supposed to advertise job openings to military spouses and actively seek to hire them.
Tip: Strengthen skills and credentials.
If no suitable career options are available in a new location, accompanying partners can put their time to good use by strengthening their job skills and attaining new credentials that will prove useful to their careers in the future. For example, they may take courses online or at universities or volunteer to gain experience relevant to their occupations. The Department of Defense offers a grant of several thousand dollars through its My Career Advancement Account Scholarship program for military spouses working toward certificates or associate degrees in specific fields.
Tip: Negotiate for relevant benefits.
Thanks to the government health care plans available to their families, military and foreign service spouses may not need the medical benefits employers offer them. During the hiring process, that gives them the option of negotiating instead for higher salaries or different desirable, relevant benefits, O’Brien says.
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Career Advice for Military Spouses and Other Accompanying Partners originally appeared on usnews.com
