An indentured servant: The impact of green card waiting time on the life of highly skilled Indian immigrants in the United States of America

Highlighting the archaic immigration system in the United States of America (US), the present study demonstrates for the first time the impact of green card waiting time on the work and family life of Indian immigrants living in the US. Our present findings show that 93.4% of our participants are very concerned about the estimated green card waiting time in the US. We find 70% of the total participants are seriously thinking at the present time about emigrating to a more visa-friendly country. Also, 30% of the participants have already applied for permanent residency in a visa friendly country and 9% of the participants have already obtained a permanent residency in a more visa-friendly country. Based on these turnover intentions, we estimate the potential direct costs to American organizations due to the green card waiting time to be in the range of $19,303,200,000 -$54,261,724,160. Furthermore, our quantitative results show that the delay in receiving a green card is negatively affecting the work and family/nonwork life of Indian immigrants in the US. These critical issues are in turn causing health issues such as constant fear of unknown (uncertainty and feeling stuck issues due to green card backlog), stress, frustration and chronic health issues. Overall, in addition to the direct losses, the work and family issues caused due to the green card waiting time could result in indirect losses to organizations. We hope that the present findings may be useful to American policy makers and organizational leaders as further decisions are made regarding the American immigration system. In particular, we hope these findings will help to illustrate many serious implications associated with the green card delays and other visa-related proposed policy changes on immigrants, and their spouses, families, and communities.https://scholar.utc.edu/iopsy/1002/thumbnail.jp

Impact of spousal work restrictions and number of dependents on expatriates’ work life and overall life satisfaction

Purpose Our understanding of the challenges and the broader role of spouses of expatriates is extremely limited. The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of spousal work restrictions and number of dependents on expatriates’ work life and overall life satisfaction using qualitative and quantitative analyses Design Data were collected from 416 Indian informational technology professionals working in USA. Hypothesized conditional process models were analyzed using the PROCESS tools. Findings Spousal work restrictions and number of dependents created complications in personal life of expatriates, which interfered with their work life resulting in lower overall life satisfaction. We identified six core classes of challenges faced by spouses of expatriates: financial issues, frustration, loss of respect/low confidence, boredom, social isolation, and domestic tension. Older expatriates were able to better manage the responsibilities associated with number of dependents. More importantly, unlike adjustment, the issues associated with spouse work restrictions did not seem to improve with age or length of time in the USA. Originality Although media outlets have from time to time brought to light the issues faced by spouses of expatriates, the present study provides more credible and complete findings by conducting a qualitative and quantitative research study. To our knowledge this is the first study that has investigated the complications experienced by expatriates’ due to the work restriction (more specifically, visa related) issues faced by the spouses of these expatriates. Our mixed method approach also helps to provide a more comprehensive picture of these complications.https://scholar.utc.edu/iopsy/1001/thumbnail.jp

Expatriates' identity salience, work stressors, and work–nonwork conflict: moderating role of gender and marital status

Drawing from identity theory, we proposed individuals with high work salience experienced high work stressors (interpersonal conflict, workhours, and workload), resulting in positive work‐nonwork conflict (WNWC), and individuals with high nonwork salience experienced lower work stressors, resulting in negative WNWC. Furthermore, we tested for the moderating role of gender and marital status in the relationship. The sample for this study consisted of 415 Indian expatriates working in the U.S. information technology (IT) industry. Findings supported the proposed model where work stressors completely conditioned the relationship between work/nonwork salience and WNWC. Work‐salient men worked longer hours compared to work‐salient women and were more prone to WNWC. In married individuals (in both work‐ and nonwork‐salient individuals), increased workload was positively associated with WNWC and long working hours were negatively associated with WNWC. These findings further suggested nonmarried individuals faced more WNWC when compared to married individuals when managing long working hours. Therefore, being married does not necessarily lead to higher levels of all forms of WNWC. Additionally, the participants in this study identified themselves to be more nonwork‐salient. We argue that identity salience predicts role behavioral intentions and emphasize the importance of differentiating expatriates based on their salience. This in turn could help organizations contextualize various challenges faced by work‐ and nonwork‐salient individuals and manage issues in a cost‐effective manner