ALL THAT SHE WANTS;THE ROLE OF CULTURAL GENDER NORMS, CAREER AND FAMILY FOR PROFESSIONAL MIGRANT WOMEN IN THE BIG FOUR

Abstract

This article seeks to understand how cultural gender social norms influence the possibility for professional migrant women arriving from Asia and Eastern Europe to take on an active role in the professional sphere of the Big Four accounting firms. For this purpose, we interviewed 40women and their supervisors, all of whom of different nationalities and working in the Big Four in Luxembourg. This highly multicultural and competitive organizational context demands levels of personal investment that are often very difficult to reconcile with family life. We draw on intersectionality as multilevel analysis (Winker & Degele, 2011) to reveal that the arrival of these women in Luxembourg is marked by the intersection of cultural gender norms with their family and hierarchical status and their motivations to migrate. This interplay explains their ability to distance themselves from their individual cultural gender norms, thus enabling them to self-accept their involvement in the professional sphere. This work contributes to the literature on female careers by highlighting that gender social norms, combined with a number of other factors, can positively influence the careers of professional migrant women.