The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2016

22 JULY-AUGUST 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL A Big Deal For AFSA, family member employment is a major advocacy issue. State Vice President Angie Bryan says she addresses the topic in her meetings with all relevant offices within the depart- ment. She wants State to understand that the issue is critical “not just to the spouses or to the family members, but also to the employees.” She thinks they’re getting the message. “I must say that I do think the department is taking it seriously,” Bryan says. For the State Department’s Family Liaison Office—which is charged with improving the quality of life for all employees and family members—family member employment has always been a big issue. “Expectations are very high about what family members would like to have in terms of employment overseas,” says FLO Director Susan Frost. She notes that six of the 25 staff in the Family Liaison Office work full time on family member employment issues. “They work very hard to try and help family members realize their profes- sional goals,” Frost says. “It’s something we take seriously, and we work hard to try to make sure it’s successful.” The most recent FLO employment report, issued in November 2015, shows that of the 11,678 adult FS family members overseas, 60 percent were not employed, 27 percent worked inside mis- sions and 13 percent worked on the local economy. According to statistics on the broader workforce of the United States, the num- ber of single-income couples among FS members is more than 10 percent higher than among their domestic counterparts. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, both husband and wife were employed in 47.7 percent of married couples in 2014. What FLO doesn’t know is howmany of that 60 percent of family members who are not currently employed are making the choice not to work—and howmany would like to be working, but are either still looking for a job or have given up trying to find one. As one spouse and blogger puts it, “Obtaining a job as an EFM is often a job by itself.” In her blog Diplomatic Impunity , “Kim E.” announced in a Feb 21, 2015, post that she was leaving the ranks of EFMs to become an FSO. “I do not have children to take care of, and I did not give up an extremely high-paying career—and still, at times, I felt more than daunted and jaded about the possibility of finding employment [as an EFM].” The Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide took an in-depth look at the issue of family member employment a few years ago. Their compilation of articles highlights some of the unique challenges EFMs face, and offer suggestions for improvement, some of the same suggestions mentioned in the QDDR. Since then, an AAFSW committee on EFM employment has been in the process of writing an extensive position paper on the issue, which could become a real resource for innovative solu- tions once it’s presented. Bob Castro, a member of the committee and the founder of Professional Partners and Spouses of the Foreign Service (PROPS), a LinkedIn network of professionally oriented FS family mem- bers, says collaboration among AAFSW, PROPS and other similar groups has, in effect, pushed the envelope on the issue of family member employment and prompted FLO and others within gov- ernment to move more rapidly. According to Castro—who won DACOR’s 2013 Eleanor Dodson Tragen Award for creating PROPS—employing family members is about more than just making spouses happy. It is also a way for the government to “leverage talent and resources that are already in place to be a force multiplier for mission objectives.” EFM Employment Options at Post What are the options for EFMs who haven’t given up on finding employment or joined the Foreign Service themselves? FLO lists enough employment programs and training opportunities to fill an 18-page brochure (“Family Member Employment and Training”). But with work spread out among more than 270 diplomatic mis- sions overseas andmore than 11,000 adult family members, many EFMs report that there aren’t enough opportunities to go around. Working Outside the Mission. For spouses looking to work on the local economy, a number of factors come into play. First and foremost, does the United States have a bilateral or de facto work agreement with the country? Only if it does, and with permission from the post’s chief of mission, are family members permitted to work locally. To help job-seekers, FLO has established the Global Employ- ment Initiative, which is available to family members from all agencies at post, since FLO gets its program budget from Interna- Source: State Department Family Liaison Office, Family Member Report, November 2015.