A identidade de trabalho interrompida: um estudo longitudinal sobre o sentido e o significado do trabalho de esposas que abandonam o trabalho para acompanhar seus maridos

Abstract

Considering the challenge of starting a new life in a foreign country, the thesis general objective was to analyzed how the women work identity, the meaning of work and the meaningfulness of work are restructured when they have to stop their professional life to follow husbands expatriated to another country on a work mission. In order achieve the objective proposed for this case, two studies were developed. The first, a systematic review, sought to analyzed how national and international literature has empirically addressed the constructs identity, meaning and meaning of work in the immigration context. Based on PRISMA method, despite not having found any empirical article that related the three constructs in the immigration context, concluded that the relationships between them are present in the form of conceptual overlapping of some terms such as meaning and meaningfulness of work. Some gaps were also identified, such as the low incidence of studies with a longitudinal design to investigate the theme and few studies about Brazilian immigrants, including immigrant wives. The second empirical and longitudinal study was analyzed from two perspectives. The 2a study aimed to analyze the narratives of work identity, meaning and meaningfulness of work of women who interrupt their professional life to accompany their husbands who immigrate to work in another country. Twelve Brazilian women, immigrants wives, residing in the USA, were interviewed four times each. Three criteria organized the purposes analysis data: US residence duration (short, medium and long term), employment status (working vs. not working outside the home) and the pandemic phase (before X after the pandemic start). Data were analyzed using the Iramuteq software. The results indicated that there was no difference in the narratives between women who resided for a short, medium, or long time in the USA. Differences were found between women who were working on the labor market or just at home, and in relation to the moment before or after the pandemic start. The 2b study, qualitative and in-depth, aimed to analyze in more details three cases of Brazilian women who participated in study 2a. Data were analyzed using Thematic Analysis. The results and allowed viewing the restricted or broader changes in the reconfigurations of identity, meaning and meaning of work, revealing specificities that mark the different experiences in the foreign country.