When the Family Has No Reason to Move, Performance Pays the Price

International assignments are often described as professional opportunities. A promotion. A milestone. A strategic step in a career. And for the executive, that is usually true.

But when we talk about the family having “no reason” to move, it doesn’t mean there is no reason at all. The assignment itself is a reason. The job is a reason. The opportunity is a reason.

International assignments often underperform not due to lack of talent, but because families lack a clear reason of their own to move, impacting performance and ROI.

What’s often missing is a reason that belongs to the family, something that goes beyond supporting the executive’s role and helps each person understand why this move matters to them.

That distinction may sound subtle, but it makes all the difference.

In today’s reality of dual careers and dual incomes, international moves almost always require someone to leave behind not only their routine and support system, but often their job, their professional identity, and their sense of independence, to follow someone else’s opportunity.

Sometimes this trade-off feels worth it. Sometimes it opens unexpected doors. And sometimes, it becomes the quiet pressure point that shapes everything else.

The problem isn’t the move itself. It’s when the move only has clear meaning for one person.

What the numbers tell us

One of the most consistent insights from international mobility research comes from the Permits Foundation’s global surveys of spouses and partners of expatriates.

In the 2022 survey, about 90% of accompanying partners reported they were working before the move, yet fewer than half were employed after relocating. That’s a striking gap, not because anyone lacks capability, but because access, purpose, and opportunity often disappear overnight when someone crosses a border.

I’ve seen this in real conversations again and again in my own work. Many accompanying partners will tell me something like:

“I’m here because of my partner’s job.”

That’s an honest answer. And it’s also a fragile one.

Because when challenges show up, and they always do, that reason rarely holds up under pressure.

If your only explanation for being in a new country is someone else’s career, it becomes very hard to anchor yourself when life gets uncomfortable, unfamiliar, or uncertain. And life abroad guarantees moments like that.

What companies rarely see

From the company’s perspective, the move is usually clear and justified: there’s a role to fill, a market to grow, a leader to deploy.

Inside the family, the picture is often much less defined.

The move becomes something that happened to the family, and sometimes not something the family chose together. There’s no shared narrative, no personal “why,” no sense of direction beyond supporting the assignment.

That’s when pressure starts building at home, quietly.

How this shows up over time

Not all at once. Not dramatically. But in small, cumulative ways:

• a partner struggling to rebuild a sense of professional identity

• growing imbalance in financial and emotional responsibility

• resentment that feels hard to name or justify

• constant questioning of whether the move was “worth it”

• tension at home that has "nothing" to do with work 

In some cases, families separate temporarily. In others, they stay together but emotionally disconnected.

And sooner or later, this spills into work.

Why this matters for performance

When the family context is unstable or emotionally heavy, the executive doesn’t leave that at the door.

Focus suffers. Energy is divided. Patience runs thinner. Decision-making becomes harder than expected.

This isn’t about motivation or capability. It’s about load, the cognitive and emotional weight people carry into their work every day. And yet, family dynamics are still treated as “personal”, something outside the scope of performance conversations.

That assumption is expensive.

International assignments don’t fail because of competence

They fail because the human drivers of performance are underestimated.

And family context is one of the strongest — and most ignored — of those drivers.

When the family doesn’t have a reason beyond “because the assignment says so,” the assignment depends entirely on individual resilience, one person carrying professional pressure while absorbing emotional strain at home.

That’s not a plan. That’s hoping things work out.

A different starting point

Successful international assignments don’t begin with logistics. They begin with meaning.

• Does the family understand why this move matters, not just to the company, but to them?

• Does the accompanying partner see a future beyond “because of work”?

• Does the leader understand that this context requires a different kind of support?

• Is the organization willing to see the assignment as more than a headcount transfer?

When these questions are left unaddressed, the issues don’t disappear, they just migrate from the workplace to the kitchen table.

When responsibility is shared, things change

International assignments work best when they are treated as shared efforts, not individual sacrifices.

When companies, leaders, and families all understand their roles, and the reason behind the move, something shifts. The assignment becomes easier to sustain. Performance stabilizes sooner. Engagement deepens. Retention increases.

International moves are not just professional transitions. They are life transitions.

And when the family has no reason to move, performance pays the price.