Family Size

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wanderworld
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 9:42 am

Family Size

Post by wanderworld »

Just curious--does anyone here have a 'larger' family (3 kids)? How has that impacted your ability to move schools/find jobs? Do most schools still cover tuition for all kids? Thanks for any insights.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Response

Post by PsyGuy »

Kids are career killers. A few notes:

1) The days of hiring families with white kids for advertising and marketing are quickly dwindling, especially in ISs with a wait list. Its cheaper to just contact a talent agency and hire some white kids for the day to do photos, or even cheaper use stock photos. The cost of a tuition/fee waiver/place for a few photos is just to high.

2) In the past the golden ration was 1:1. That means for every employer you could reasonably count on 1 tuition/fee waiver/place for a dependent child. That benefit ratio is shrinking or vanishing. It is becoming much more common for a family (even if its 2 teaching parents) to get something like one tuition/fee waiver/place and then a 50% discount on a second tuition/fee waiver/place and full cost beyond that. What is becoming even more common is for ISs to flat out state they do not provide tuition waivers/places at all.

3) Even when a tuition/fee waiver/place is provide more often ITs are finding that benefit is taxed as regular comp and in many cases increases the tax rate of the IT. A family with two kids can easily find themselves in the position where the tax burden of two tuition/fee waivers/places costs a substantial portion of one whole salary.

4) Beyond the tuition/fee waiver/place cost there is the added cost in larger housing or increased housing allowance, transportation, insurance, etc.

5) Kids provide no benefit. Every parent disagrees and has a list of pseudo benefits that they think their amazing child brings to the IS. None of them are true or valued. Kids are just historically perceived as part of the cost of doing business and provided some marginal ancillary benefits. That just isnt true anymore. Recruiting has gotten easier, and the availability of ITs has substantially increased.

Three kids is going to drastically reduce the marketability of an IT or an IT couple. If its two high demand ITs with strong resumes there are still ISs that will do that. Watch an interview where the recruiters are excited about the applicant and then hear the comment they have 3 (or more kids) and you can tangibly feel the energy vanish from the room. Many places cant even entertain that scenario and in others it would leave a family broke given the various burdens (such as taxes, increased cost of housing, etc.). For others, the OSH package an IT couple typically requires or expects for the entire family will doom an application from the start or make such a hire a last resort situation.

If you have three kids, be prepared for a lot of disappointment and frustration if youre an IT couple. Forget about it if your a single parent.
expatscot
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Jan 14, 2016 4:26 am

Re: Family Size

Post by expatscot »

It depends on the school and the group. Psyguy puts it all in his inimitable, rather negative way, but as always it's not as clear cut as that.

The number of staff child places is certainly diminishing. Ask any head and they will tell you they will almost always prioritise "single, no kids" or "couple, no kids" ahead of anyone with kids. You could take this as a sign of how the school is doing financially - if they're scrabbling to make sure every potential fee place is filled, then maybe there is an issue.

However, it's still not unusual to have at least one fully funded place per teacher; or even two per family. Three, though, does often cause a problem and there's actually only one of the school groups I can think of who I know allow this.

In terms of tax, it depends on the country. There is still a threat hanging over Chinese schools that this may be implemented, and in the higher-fee schools like Dulwich or WAB (in Beijing) this could be really challenging to get around.

I don't agree that children always have no benefit though. In "proper" international schools I can see that argument, but in the lower tier schools where there may be less international and more local students, this may be something which bosses will consider. Whether it would be a reason to employ, I'm not sure.

So to answer your question in short - most schools will cover tuition for some kids, but usually only one or two. Schools who cover three fully will be the exception rather than the rule.
Innsbruckave
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Apr 28, 2023 2:01 pm

Re: Family Size

Post by Innsbruckave »

Dear OP,
We have been overseas (China, Malaysia, and Thailand) with our 3 kids for over 20 years. Initially, I was a trailing spouse, when we arrived at our first international school with the first child. Our family grew to three kids during that time. When we left that school, we did have a hard time finding a job for my husband, who is an HL Maths and TOK teacher. So, I started getting my qualifications and got a job at our second school. The third school had no problems with us having three kids, although I didn't get a job there (or anywhere) and it took some time to get that job. More recently, in the past 6 years, we've had no problems. It helped that we each got jobs at different schools in the same city. We each had a two-child allowance. Now the oldest has graduated and we're down to two. I think the demographics of international schools in Asia has made it more desirable to have teachers with kids, lots of kids to balance out the numbers. That's a theory, but my last school had three teaching couples with three kids each and was trying to keep the local student population to less than 50%.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10789
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Discussion

Post by PsyGuy »

There are a variety of reasons, not all financial. Even then its not one tuition/fee waiver/seat its the aggregate of them which can be a hefty amount of coin.

Its not unusual to have one tuition/fee waiver/seat, but its a benefit thats shrinking not growing, there are more ISs stating they cant or wont fund tuition/fee waiver/seats. Further the number of ISs that provide two is also shrinking (and its shrinking more than one is) such that the second tuition/fee waiver/seat even for a teaching couple is becoming more of a 50% discount on that second tuition/fee waiver/seat.

Its not just China, its other parts of Asia as well (such as SG, HK, etc.) and its a large portion of the EUR where tuition/fee waiver/seat are comp. China will just magnify that substantially, especially at the more expensive ISs.

What benefit do ITs kids bring to an IS thats mostly host nationals? Do the locals really need some white, western, colonial kids to socialize among themselves to be international? I have yet to hear of reasonable justification for the cost of ITs kids in an IS. Every issue that ITs kids provide can be accomplished through an alternative solution easier and at less cost. The exception being the IS had no other acceptable option to fill the vacancy(s).

For every success story you here of theres a much larger group of ITs that you dont hear from because they had to exit or never got started in IE because they couldnt get a job and make a career due to their family size.
wanderworld
Posts: 15
Joined: Tue May 19, 2015 9:42 am

Re: Family Size

Post by wanderworld »

Thanks all. We have two kids now, both born in the country I am teaching in and have been debating a third. My current school covers tuition for the kids without restriction on number of kids, but our oldest is in local school at the moment so it isn't an issue. I don't know that we want to live here forever so I appreciate the responses.
mysharona
Posts: 210
Joined: Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:25 am

Re: Family Size

Post by mysharona »

We went overseas with three kids and we got the jobs because I was able to do some inkind work for the school, though to be honest I'm not sure that was even necessary once we arrived in country. We then went home for several years and then back out and managed to find a school that would take three children no questions asked. I think if you are willing to put in the time and not restrict yourself geographically you would find other opportunities.
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