International Office Opens Drive To Give Foreign Wives U.S. Jobs

Harvard's International Office will soon launch a campaign to remove the legal barriers which prohibit many foreign students' wives from working in this country.

According to Alice B. Hall, assistant to the director of the International Office, the Immigration Act of 1965 does not specifically prohibit foreign wives from working in the U.S., but has been interpreted that way.

"We are hoping for a change in interpretation, not a change in the law," Mrs. Hall said. The government fears that if foreign wives were allowed to work they would flood the labor market and keep good Americans out of jobs, she explained.

A recent study completed by the Office shows that if all the wives of students here on visas throughout the country were allowed to seek jobs, only 4000 would join the labor force. "University communities alone could easily absorb these workers without displacing any Americans," Mrs. Hall said.

She added that Harvard always has more openings than it can fill for women who want jobs as secretaries, laboratory technicians, and library assistants. However, before a United States employer can give a job to an allen, he must swear before a notary that he cannot find a U.S. citizen to fill the post.

His case would then go to Washington for an employee search which may take as long as two months, Mrs. Hall said. "Meanwhile the average university job would long since have been filled, however inadequately, by someone else," she added.

The survey of foreign students also described the financial problems of many couples at Harvard. Scholarships from the Graduate School are based on the minimum needs of a single student, whether or not he has dependents. Married foreign students receive no special consideration even though their wives cannot work and their initial expenses are usually greater than those of local students.

The survey also shows that foreign students with dependents often must live in, "inferior housing." Most cannot afford trips to other parts of the country and therefore, "return home with a distorted idea of the United States and its people as a whole."