The Ones Who Stay Behind: Unseen Transitions of Significant Others in International Student Mobility

Written by Fahd Ali Asif (University of Dundee)

I recently came across a LinkedIn post by a fellow international education practitioner, reflecting on her son’s upcoming year abroad in Australia. After years of supporting international students in her day job, she found herself on “the other side”, not as an international education specialist, but as a mother bidding farewell to her child. Her reflections were candid and deeply moving: the pride and excitement of such an opportunity, the unexpected costs and logistical hurdles, the relief in knowing he would be picked up the airport upon arrival and taken straight to his accommodation. And underlying it all, the quiet heartbreak of letting go…

It prompted me to reflect on an area often overlooked in both research and practice – and something I continue to explore in my own doctoral work: the experiences of families who remain behind as the participants embark on their journeys abroad. On the surface, it may appear that nothing changes for the families and significant others of these students; they stay in the same place, in the same roles, while the student embarks on their journey. Yet in reality, everything changes. Emotional landscapes shift, responsibilities are redistributed, and relationships evolve – often silently, and without formal recognition. While we rightly centre international students in our work, we must also begin to ask: what about the lives reshaped back home, in their absence?

In many cultures, especially across the Global South, studying abroad is a collective, strategic family investment; not just financial, but social, cultural and emotional too. Families often pool finances, make cultural and social sacrifices, navigate logistical nuances and emotionally prepare themselves for separation. In most cases, they do so without much recognition, visibility, or voice. While the role of family involvement within international student decision-making is well documented, what is less noticeable is the financial, emotional, social and cultural labour that accompanies this. Guilt. Pride. Anxiety. Hope. For instance, consider the parent who takes out a significant bank loan to pay tuition. The sibling left behind to fend additional family responsibilities. Or the spouse navigating a long-distance relationship across time zones. These significant others are not passive bystanders, they are actively affected and influenced by the experience, even if they never actually leave their home country.

While there is growing body of literature on the experiences of dependents or family members who accompany international students abroad, and the influence of these sojourns on their transitions, there is limited focus on those who remain at home and yet, experience their own unique social, emotional, financial and cultural transitions.

As we recognise the impact of international student mobility on institutions, communities, workplaces and countries at large, it is also important to explore the unique perspectives of families and significant others, who never leave home, but experience their own transitions, shaped by the participants’ decision to study abroad. In my own research with international returnee students, many speak of their families’ silent struggles and wins, while they were abroad, including loneliness, worry, financial insecurity, and even the reshaping of family dynamics in addition to the resulting gain in social mobility, financial growth and shared learnings. For example, a father who once led household decisions stepping back as the student abroad assumed a new leadership role upon return. Or a mother who avoided talking about her own health struggles to not “burden” her child abroad, or a sibling who grew distant while the participant was studying abroad and losing that bond. Similarly, there’s the notion of shared learning and intellectual evolution, an elevated sense of financial and social mobility as a family, with the participants positively influencing their familial networks with their new worldviews and perspectives. While within my own research, these views are coming from the lens of the participants themselves, there is need to bring the significant others to the foreground as well. It reinforces the need to think about international student transitions not only as personal and academic, but as deeply relational and embedded in wider networks of care. As Jindal-Snape argues, that for the participants, the transitions of moving abroad start well before they actually embark on the journey, and even not being able to embark on the study abroad journey itself triggers several transitions. Similarly, despite them never leaving home in the first place, the significant others of participants also undergo concurrent transitions across multiple domains, and that these transitions are reciprocal, dynamic and deeply interlinked. These transitions have a deep and long-lasting impact on familial bonds, social relationships as well as communities at large.

As international education practitioners, researchers, and policymakers, we spend a lot of time discussing students. But students do not move in isolation. Their journeys are tethered to the lives of many others, parents, siblings, partners, friends, who go through quieter but equally meaningful transitions. It’s time we started asking: What about them?

Suggested Readings:

Jindal-Snape, D., & Rienties, B. (2016). Understanding multiple and multi-dimensional transitions of international higher education students: Setting the scene. In Multi-dimensional transitions of international students to higher education (pp. 1-17). Routledge.

Mittelmeier, J., Lomer, S., & Unkule, K. (2024). Research with international students: Critical conceptual and methodological considerations (p. 302). Taylor & Francis.

Author bio:

Twitter/X: @fahdaliasif
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fahdaliasif/