Benefits while working on Husband visa?

This is what I know. It would depend: - if both you and your husband work for government agencies/companies then you will only get one set of benefits no matter on whose visa you are. By benefits, I mean housing, tickets home, school fees, health insurance. - if one of you works for the government and the other works private, whether you both get the benefits above would depend on the internal policies of the private company, and on the position/grade. This is the position for my DH and me. One is semi gov and the other is private. I am on his visa with a labour card from my employer. We both get full benefits, except I do not take the school fees as his company already pays and since I have health insurance from him I disclosed it to my company so they do not have to cover us twice. We both get housing (both our companies do not provide accommodation, they pay out the housing allowance) and we both separately get tickets home for the whole family. - if you both work in private companies, whether you both get the benefits above would depend on the internal policies of the two private companies, and on the position/grade. Regarding health insurance, if you get it from one company already, the other company is not obliged to provide it to you. As for maternity leave and annual leave, you are entitled to both regardless of whose visa you are on. These are both in the labour law. Maternity leave is 40 days (or is it 45? - cannot remember) but some companies will give longer or let you take leave without pay for a longer period. For example, I used to work for the UAE branch of a UK based company that gave 3 months maternity leave with the option to take another 3 months without pay. During negotiations, do not allow yourself to be short changed. Ask to see the company policy and ask what the benefits are for the grade they are offering you. In my view, if you are on your DH's visa, they are already making savings by not paying for a visa for you and not giving you health insurance, so there is no need for them to give you less benefits unless it is clearly stated in the company policies. Hope this helps.

The finer print here is this. Do you know, by law, you need to have labor approval, even if you are on your husband sponsorship. In fact it is illegal to work without such approval. Once you have labor approval, you are at par with anyone else in the company, for Law. But law has limited conditions that they can enforce. While there are several other benefits that are upto the employer to offer / employee to negotiate. As long as it is in your offer letter and labor contract, you have your right to those benefits. If one is working without labor approval, such individual will have no rights in the eyes of Law as they have engaged in illegal activity. Hope this helps.

It depends on the company, maternity leave is 40 days by law and you get insurance IF the insurer doesn't ask for a proof that you don't have another insurance from your husband's company. Annual leave is per labour law or company handbook (some companies have more leave days than the ones stated in the labour law but the status of you visa doesn't make a difference) If you work for government you don't get any benefits like schooling, insurance or housing if your husband works for a government company. But maternity and annual leaves are not affected. I'm not sure about ticket, I think in some private companies your husband should declare that you are working but again it depends on the company. I was working under my dad's visa, when I started to work my dad's company took away my ticket & insurance as those were provided by my employer. But all companies I worked for gave me all benefits including housing for singles.

In most cases there are more benefits if you are working on a company visa rather than on your husbands visa. The company would consider an employee under its sponsorship to be more stable long term, whereas a person under their husbands sponsorship wouldn't be as stable as they can quit at any time without certain contractual obligations, such as not having to pay back any educational or training costs if they end the contract early, not having to give a notice period, etc. From personal observations I've seen people doing the same admin job in the same company, similar qualifications and experience, but the person on her husbands visa makes a lower salary without benefits such as transport, housing and no ticket back home. The only added benefit was insurance. It would really depend on the specific policy of the company. But generally if you want more benefits it's better to be sponsored by the company. I'm not sure about the maternity leave as I haven't actually seen anyone on her husbands visa pregnant. But it was covered by the medical insurance provided by the employer.