The transnational education to employment transition: Peruvian women and men professional and family trajectories in Switzerland

Abstract

Drawing on a life-course perspective, this paper focuses on the analysis of the transnatio nal education to employment transitions that particularly shows the interdependence of professional and family trajectories in a migration context. I focus on Peruvian migration to study in a Swiss Higher Education institution and subsequent job-hunting in the Swiss labour market; and link them with transnational family configurations. I present two types of life-courses found among highly skilled Peruvian men and women: the concordance or discordance between education credentials and current employment conditions. Although many studies have emphasised the problems of validating foreign degrees as the greatest barrier for highly skilled foreigners, I argue that having a Swiss degree does not automatically guarantee adequate employment for Peruvian men and women in Switzerland. The findings clearly stress the ambivalent role of Swiss degrees for migrants, as well as, the heterogeneous impact of partnership and parenthood. These processes can be explained by different opportunities and limitations based on fields of qualification and dynamic gender normativity in couple’s negotiations and employer employee relations.