Negotiating unequal mobility opportunities: Young academics’ mobility in the EU and their partner-related living arrangements

This article explores academic mobility in the European Union (EU) and partner-related living arrangements in early career stages. The data are drawn from interviews carried out with couples as part of a qualitative study focusing on university graduates who lived in Germany before pursuing their careers in other member states, namely France and the Netherlands. The analysis suggests a framework for empirical research that combines studying the interactions within couples along with factors resulting from the political governance of cross-border mobility in the EU. This article looks empirically at four types of intra-EU mobile careers with distinct partner-related living arrangements and considers how gender intersects with the conditional and exclusive entitlement to free movement within the EU. As the findings demonstrate, the living arrangements of young academics and their partners are not only a consequence of mobile careers, but such arrangements can in turn affect mobility decisions. Furthermore, the EU’s free movement policies can present obstacles in the early stages of a career, during which academics and their partners are likely to experience periods of interrupted economic activity. Moreover, couples in which the partner is a third-country national face severe restrictions. The free movement rights of the academics and their partners, as well as their conditions for exercising these rights, proved to have a strong impact on the couples’ unequal mobility opportunities.