International careers: are women assignees losing trust in EDI policy and practice?

Although women comprise one-third of international assignees, their representation falls away in the more senior international positions. Organisations are placing increasing emphasis on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives in the international context but whether their equality and diversity policies and practice achieve stated aims is open to debate. Dr Sue Shortland reports.

Sue Shortland

3 February 2025

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While organisations espouse the intention to achieve fairness and justice, achieving equity requires acknowledgement and action to address the fact that minorities start from a different baseline. Organisations have typically published equality and diversity policies that aim to ensure equal opportunities for a diverse range of employees. Yet, when it comes to international assignments, the expatriate majority typically comprises men, indicating occupational segregation is taking place and equality, diversity and equity do not prevail.

Occupational segregation

Occupational segregation includes both horizontal and vertical dimensions. This means that when minorities experience disadvantage, this can be seen in their under-representation in particular jobs and positions within organisational hierarchies.With respect to international assignments, horizontal segregation is evidenced by one gender (in this case men) comprising the majority of the expatriate workforce. Vertical segregation refers to limited career progression – in this case women make up only the minority of senior international assignment roles. Horizontal and vertical segregation are linked. The smaller the proportion of women holding international roles, the less likely they are to reach the most senior positions within them.International mobility provides career advantages. This is because leadership positions are often awarded to those with direct international experience. For women to achieve an equal share of leadership roles, they need an equal share of international assignments at the most senior levels. For equity to be achieved, the starting point is for equality and diversity policies to work for women and other minorities.

Equality expectations

Research shows that expectations of equality in achieving professional goals affect assignees’ job satisfaction, commitment and turnover. Women face a number of challenges within their international careers. These include unfair treatment and/or bias in selection, reduced access to aspects of on-assignment support, and greater challenges on repatriation.Despite these hurdles, research indicates that women are as successful, if not more so, than men on international assignments. This means that we would expect to see a higher percentage of women undertaking global roles and conducting these at senior levels. Yet horizontal and vertical segregation persists. This raises concern as to whether women can trust their organisations to support their international careers.

Why equality and diversity policies fall short

Organisations’ equality and diversity policies may not fully achieve stated objectives for a number of reasons. Responsibility for managing international assignments is often spread amongst a range managerial levels and functional areas across the globe. This can mean that there is a lack of specific accountability for policy implementation.When appointment and deployment processes are spread across a number of international locations and subsidiaries, there can also be contractual difficulties in applying equality and diversity policies. Not all countries across the world place as much emphasis on equality and diversity as Western sending locations. Added to this, haphazard and opaque approaches to selection and deployment when this is conducted at a local level can undermine good intentions at the headquarters to implement equality/diversity policy.

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Women’s changing equality perceptions

Research shows that women begin their careers with trust in equality and diversity policy. They believe that it will support their entry into international roles and their progression within them. This is despite the fact that they can see the evidence before them of fewer senior women holding international positions. As their careers progress and they move into junior and middle management positions, women usually have first-hand experience of some - or indeed many - of the issues that detrimentally affect their career progression (such as gendered selection and career management processes). The lack of gender diversity in senior roles and of female role models at this level in the hierarchy, can lead to concern over equality/diversity policy implementation.Women assignees can become disillusioned in the organisational support provided for their international careers, particularly as they move towards more senior levels. Indeed, those who do reach the most senior international assignment grades can feel that their organisations’ equality and diversity policies are just rhetoric and their sentiments are divorced from their own workplace experiences.Often there are very few other women in the most senior grades. This results in a more masculine environment in which women have to forge their way. Being part of a tiny minority can lead to senior women assignees losing trust in their employers. When this happens it is likely that these women will leave their organisations and seek careers elsewhere.When women lose trust in equality/diversity policy implementation and this results in turnover, this reduces women’s share of senior international assignment roles still further. In turn, this undermines organisational efforts to increase expatriate gender diversity. True equity then appears even more remote as an organisational strategic goal.

Implications for practice

While it might be an organisational strategic goal to achieve gender equity and Human Resources, and Global Mobility professionals may do their best to promote and fulfil equality/diversity objectives, research indicates that they can feel powerless to achieve progress due to an overall lack of accountability within their organisations. In essence, while everyone has responsibility, no one is specifically accountable for policy outcomes. Leadership support is critical in this regard with accountability being necessary at the very highest levels in the organisation.When equality/diversity policy is championed at board level, this can help to ensure that all subsidiaries are held equally accountable for promoting and facilitating these objectives at local level. To ensure accountability throughout the organisation, line and other relevant managers in both home and host countries should be appraised on equality/diversity objectives. Implementing accountability by making this part of individuals’ personal targets means that anyone holding a role that has relevance to women’s international career progression is measured against specific criteria.It is likely though that line and other managers might not realise that they exhibit bias towards women and other minorities. The provision of unconscious bias training might be needed. This can prove valuable because when managers recognise their responsibilities towards women’s international careers and learn how to support them more effectively, this is likely to improve relationships between women assignees and their employing organisations. If a climate of trust can be built around women’s international career progression, turnover of senior women can be reduced and equity be seen to be becoming a reality. It is important to monitor and evaluate training given.To go beyond equality and make progress towards equity, positive action may be needed. To promote women’s representation at senior levels, actions might include initiatives such as ensuring interview opportunities for women, encouraging them to apply for senior roles. This action can be monitored and outcomes evaluated.Organisational support to encourage women’s networks, senior assignees acting as role models, and the provision of mentors and sponsors for women assignees can help to promote their representation at more senior levels. Formal succession planning systems are also valuable in this regard.

What does equity look like?

While organisations might have a strategic goal to ensure a higher representation of women in leadership positions and to achieve this they may turn their attention to improving their policies and processes to raise the proportion of senior female international assignees, this is only part of the story. They need to consider what success would look like in terms of gender equity being achieved. If the organisationally-assigned senior expatriate profile achieves 50% representation of women is this true equity?It is necessary to recognise the various aspects of discrimination that minorities experience and to recognise that several of these combine to create different levels of disadvantage. Women are not a homogenous group. Personal characteristics such as age, sexuality, race, religion, and disability all play a part in how a woman is viewed and treated.If, after organisational effort to achieve gender equity, the female profile reflects the current picture for men (namely white and heterosexual), it can be argued that there is still a long way to go.

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