Trailing Spouse
entry by Julie M. Marx, Global Family Expert at Expat Valley
Trailing Spouse is an older, widely used term for the partner who follows an assignee to a new location because of a work-related move, typically leaving or reducing their own employment in the process. In contemporary global mobility practice the term is increasingly recognized as gendered and passive, with a shift toward the more neutral and agency-respecting Accompanying Partner.
Comparable terms
Accompanying Partner (less controversial, generally accepted term); Expat Partner (community and coaching)
Why this matters
Including Trailing Spouse in the glossary is important because the term still appears in research, policy documents, and community narratives, even as many practitioners are moving away from it. Understanding its history and limitations helps organizations and families adopt language that better reflects shared decision-making, dual careers, and the active contribution of partners to assignment success.
Cross-references
Accompanying Partner (Transitions & Mobility); Accompanying Partner Career Disruption (Family Dynamics); Dual-Career Couple (Family Dynamics). Trailing Spouse names the legacy framing of the role that is reframed as Accompanying Partner in this vocabulary, with Accompanying Partner Career Disruption and Dual-Career Couple detailing the structural and career impacts that the older term tended to hide.
Sources
Harvey’s work on dual‑career expatriates and trailing spouses remains foundational for understanding how partner careers shape willingness to relocate and the risk of assignment failure. In particular, Harvey, M. G. (1997). Dual‑career expatriates: Expectations, adjustment and satisfaction with international relocation. Journal of International Business Studies. and Harvey, M. G., & Wiese, D. (1998). The dual‑career couple: Female expatriates and male trailing spouses. Thunderbird International Business Review. analyzes the ‘trailing spouse’ experience within dual‑career couples and shows that the partner’s career sacrifice and adjustment difficulties generate significant stress and can undermine both the assignment and the relationship. In Cooke, T. J. (2001). “Trailing wife” or “trailing mother”? Family migration, life‑course events, and the labor‑market participation of married women. Environment and Planning A., the author extends this conversation into domestic and regional migration, demonstrating long‑term penalties to women’s labor‑market participation when they move for a partner’s career and highlighting how parental status further constrains options. More recent reviews of expatriate family adjustment synthesize evidence that partner and child adjustment have strong crossover and spillover effects on the assignee’s own adjustment and performance, underscoring that the ‘trailing spouse’ is a central stakeholder in assignment outcomes rather than a peripheral dependent. Together these sources both explain why the term Trailing Spouse emerged historically and why many practitioners now prefer Accompanying Partner as a less gendered, more agency‑respecting alternative.
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