Gender issues and family concerns for women with international careers

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how female expatriates face gender stereotyping and discrimination in their home and host countries and how they reconcile their conflicts between home and work.Design/methodology/approachQualitative data were collected via interviews with 21 female expatriates in Western multinational corporations with offices in Taiwan.FindingsAlthough gender stereotyping and discrimination are not significant phenomena in home companies, this result needs to be cautiously interpreted because the informants do not have complete information, and faultily presume that overseas assignments are under the protection of anti‐discrimination laws. In the host countries, we found that gender stereotyping and discrimination might be intra‐ethnic rather than nonexistent. Moreover, a woman's life course influences her efforts to build overseas careers, and expatriate women who are married and raising children have to utilize various other kinds of social support in order to balance family and job responsibilities.Research limitations/implicationsSince, this research is conducted in the Taiwan offices of the multinational corporations, it could not directly examine the overseas posting policies and procedures of home companies and thus is limited in its explanation of this perspective. Owing to the small number of cases in this research, the further research on ethnic differences in sex discrimination among female expatriates is needed.Practical implicationsThis research could serve as a useful source for women interested in pursuing international careers and for companies and governments seeking to help such women.Originality/valueBy thoroughly re‐examining the previous research and bringing new perspectives to the future study of female expatriates, this research comes to some un‐conventional findings.