Not fitting in socially may seem like a small thing. But it can lead to severe difficulties. The Japanese psychologist Junko Tanaka-Matsumi, who worked with the 50,000-member Japanese community in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut region, noted that a foreign transfer could commonly spell depression for so-called trailing spouses.

In the past, companies primarily found jobs for wives of transferred employes. But now that too is changing. As women reach higher positions in corporations, more and more are being asked to transfer, and the husband ends up as the "trailing spouse."