Countries where benefits not lost if married to local

[Open Communication]

Are there any countries where benefits are not lost if an expat marries a local? I don't know how this works, it may be a school decision in some cases. A list of countries and schools may be interesting to some of us singles out there.

[ibrahim123]

I did not know some schools had a policy of terminating benefits if you are married to a local. I would love to hear more about this.

[buffalofan]

Never heard of this actually happening. It doesn't happen at my school, and I know people who have married locally here. If a school tried to pull that on me, I'd tell them where to shove their local hire contract...

[pgrass]

I think the list of countries where this does happen will be much smaller than the list of countries where it doesn't happen. I have never encountered it.

[sid]

It does happen, but it's rare.
There are 2 scenarios. In the 1st, you lose your previous personal benefits but actually come out way ahead because your spouse as a local gets far better benefits. This applies in very few countries, basically ones in the Middle East with extensive government support of the local citizenry. I presume you wouldn't be writing if this applied to you.
In the 2nd, you lose your personal benefits on the argument that the expat package is intended to compensate and/or lure foreign teachers away from their established lives back home. It's essentially an incentive to make up for giving up your family next door, to cover the cost of jumping off the property ladder back home, etc. In this scenario, as soon as you marry a local, you are signaling that you are now a permanent sort of resident, committed to the country, establishing a forever connection/home. Therefore the incentives no longer apply. It's the same rationale used by some schools that take away recruited benefits if you stay past a certain number of years or become a citizen.
Neither scenario is very common.
Fair? Not for me to say. If it's communicated clearly and applied consistently, then it is simply what you signed on for, and presumably you decided that it was fair before you signed. Otherwise why sign? Or maybe, when you signed, you didn't really pay much attention because you didn't see it happening to you. I can see that option easily. Who thinks, when they're considering a contract 'Yeah, but what if I meet my soulmate?'
If it's a deep and hidden secret, pulled out of the central office's file cabinet only after the wedding reception, ouch. Not a nice way to operate a school.
So you have to decide, stay and live on the local economy like everyone else does (lucky expat teachers aside), or move on with happy spouse to new hunting grounds.

[Walter]

I know of schools that have a time bar on the years one can remain on an expat package. After ten years, say, they will make the judgment that the teacher in question has become a local resident.
Sometimes, this isn't a decision of the school but of the immigration office. Officials may stop granting an expat visa because of the length of stay or, crucially, if the expat marries locally. They may then insist that the teacher's visa be attached to the local national spouse.
In such cases, the school will inevitably switch the contract terms so that they become local, otherwise it would be obliged to pay all its local hires an expat package.
The rule is to investigate these things before they happen to you!