Taking a Step Back? Expatriation Consequences on Women in Dual-Career Couples in the Gulf

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I enjoyed reading this paper for several reasons. GCC is a region with particularly high dependencies on immigrant labour, yet under researched as a context in expatriation studies. Furthermore, it is a region embedded with gendered structural processes and cultural, social and institutional practices that frame expatriates lived experiences. I appreciated hearing the womans' voice in the expatriation narrative, to complement the male norm and quantitative studies. 

Ideally the data set would have been from one GCC country, as the specificities of country context could have been explored in more detail. However, this analysis highlights broad themes evident across the GCC. 

There could have been a clearer methodological justification of the chosen approach in the context of previous expatriate careers research. There was a clear account of the development of the interview protocol and development of coding framework. The presentation and discussion of the qualitative data, particularly the participant voice is clear and framed within the literature. The authors are  clear on the limitations to generalize, acknowledged with qualitative studies. However, it provides contextual insights often hidden in large quantitative studies. 

Author Response

Thank you for your positive comments, I am glad that you found the paper to be enjoyable and valuable within an under-researched context.

I agree, it would have been preferable to use data from a single GCC country, however as you point out, I have related the analysis to the broad themes which are applicable across the GCC (and arguable other) contexts. Additionally, I note your points about a clearer methodological justification of the chosen approach in the context of previous expatriate careers research. The interviews reported here were taken from a larger qualitative study which explored the experiences of expatriates more generally. As I found this to be an interesting emergent theme, I have presented the findings in their own right.

I am pleased that you found the development of the interview protocol and development of coding framework to be clear as well as the presentation of participant voice.

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic is relevant and current, namely in the context in which the research is conducted.

In the last paragraphs of the Abstract, it is suggested that the authors highlight the main results of the investigation.

In the Introduction, the authors make a framework that responds to the expectations created by the research topic.

In Table 1 (line 157), authors are suggested to remove the names of the interviewees (even if they are not the real ones) and replace it with a code. Table 1 shows that 9 women were interviewed, which is considered insufficient to verify trends, as mentioned in “limitations and future research”.

In line 187, the authors are suggested to replace “4. Findings” by “results”. The authors used the software (NVIVO version 12) (Line 172), so it would have been interesting to present and analyze the results through tables or figures with the layouts of the program used and according to the codes.

Figure 1 presents 4 “thematic categories” and section 4 presents 4 different topics, so it is suggested that the text be changed so that the line of investigation is coherent.

In line 341, it is suggested that the authors substitute “5. Concluding Discussion” for “5. Discussion”. Section 5 should be improved in terms of confrontation with the results of other authors.

 

Suggestions for authors:

• Improve the last paragraph of the abstract with the main research results;
• In Table 1, remove the names of the interviewees (even if they are not the real ones);
• Introduce the software layouts in the paper (NVIVO version 12);
• Improve Figure 1 (despite being an example) with the codes or categories used;
• Section 5 must be improved.
• Conduct more interviews until reaching the saturation point (15 to 20 interviewees!).

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback, I am pleased that you find the topic relevant and contextually current. Please allow me to respond to each of your suggestions, my responses to each of your points are preceded by two asterisks (**):

• Improve the last paragraph of the abstract with the main research results;

** The Abstract has been amended to highlight the main results of the investigation as shown below and on page 1 of the manuscript:

The main results from this study suggest that sociocultural features of the host country setting, such as the inability to access professional networks due to gendered segregation, prevent women’s careers from being prioritized and force a ‘tipping point’ creating a lag in women’s careers and negatively impacting their career capital.

• In Table 1, remove the names of the interviewees (even if they are not the real ones);

** Thank you for the suggestion, pseudonyms were used to help readers to follow the participants’ stories. However, as requested, all references to the pseudonymised names have been removed and replaced with a simple code.

 

• Introduce the software layouts in the paper (NVIVO version 12);

** Thank you for the suggestion, I have added a Figure (1) which provides an example of the coding I used in NVivo. Having reviewed the entire coding framework, I think this is more helpful to support the methods section. Also, the title for Section 4 has been changed from Findings to Results.

• Improve Figure 1 (despite being an example) with the codes or categories used;

** Thank you for this suggestion. To include all codes in this Figure would make it unpresentable, instead I have changed the subheading of Section 4 to align more closely with the thematic categories. I think the Figure still provides readers with sufficient information about the analysis process to allow replicability.

• Section 5 must be improved.

I have separated Section 5 Concluding Discussion into two sections Section 5 Discussion and Section 6 Conclusion, respectively. I have reworked parts of the Discussion to show how my results compare to those of earlier studies, with a particular emphasis on my contribution which is that that contextual features of the host country force a ‘tipping point’, creating a lag in women’s careers that prohibit their careers from being prioritized during future overseas stints and negatively impacting their career capital.

• Conduct more interviews until reaching the saturation point (15 to 20 interviewees!).

** I would very much like to conduct more interviews and will hopefully have the opportunity to do so in the future. As the interviews reported here were taken from a larger qualitative study which explored the experiences of expatriates more generally, I am unable to extend the number of interviews at present. As a qualitative study, the focus has been to provide contextual insights often hidden in large quantitative studies. 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The improvements made to the paper the minimum conditions for it to be published.

However, it would be interesting to continue the study with more interviews until a saturation point is found. Still, the content analysis must be completed with a frequency table and the respective descriptive analysis.