The term trailing spouse is used to describe a person who follows his or her life partner to another city because of a work assignment. The term is often associated with people involved in an expatriate

Expatriate

An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...

 assignment but is also used by academia

Academia

Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...

 on domestic assignments.

The earliest citation of the term trailing spouse is attributed to Mary Bralove in the Wall Street Journal (July 15, 1981) in an article titled “Problems of Two-Career Families Start Forcing Businesses to Adapt” p. 29:

Another personnel man remembers the promising executive he lost because her husband was a dentist who couldn’t find a good practice to join in the area. To cope with this problem, some 150 northern New Jersey employers participate in an employer job bank. The bank is designed to provide job leads for “the trailing spouse” of a newly hired or transferred executive.

The phenomena of expat Trailing Spouses is most apparent in the military

Military

A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...

, diplomatic, and other government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

 communities as well as the private sector

Private sector

In economics, the private sector is that part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is run by private individuals or groups, usually as a means of enterprise for profit, and is not controlled by the state...

 where the employer regularly re-assigns their employees to new locations. In each case, the Trailing Spouse is required to relocate and as a result faces a range of issues that impact their personal and working lives.

Issues

• Dual-career challenges - Whereby the Trailing Spouse suspends or gives up their career to follow the lead partner on their assignment.
• Family issues - Stresses caused by social, financial and cultural strains placed on the family relationships as a result of the assignment.
• Barriers to mobility - The willingness or otherwise of the Trailing Spouse or other family members to relocate. Lack of support by the sponsoring employer to address the needs of the Trailing Spouse.
• Work/Life challenges - Difficulties associated with finding and maintaining meaningful work or other sense of worth while on assignments.
• Loss of identity - Difficulties associated with loss of identity and the subsequent period of reshape and remodelling that ensues in the new environment.
• Gender - Experiences and issues facing male trailing spouse vary from those faced by females.

Research into the Trailing Spouse phenomenon

2005 Trailing Spouse Survey: Findings of a 4-year study of accompanying spouse issues on international assignments

Yvonne McNulty is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Monash University

Monash University

Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. In May 2005 she completed a research study and published an 80-page survey containing findings from the 4-year study of Trailing Spouse issues on international assignments which completed a project that was started nearly 5 years ago as part of a much larger study conducted at Southern Cross University

Southern Cross University

Southern Cross University is a university based on the North and Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia. It is a regional University with more than 14,000 students. The University's primary campus is in Lismore, with other campuses located at Coffs Harbour and Tweed Heads.The University is...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

From the executive summary of the 2005 Trailing Spouse Survey (paraphrased):

The costs associated with global mobility are high, with evidence suggesting
that the costs exceed $1 million per assignee, per assignment, and that the total cost to
multinational corporations could be as high as $75 billion a year. It has
been clearly demonstrated by industry surveys that ‘family issues’
is the number one reason why international assignments are declined. ‘Family issues’
is also the main cause of assignment failure.

Fiction novels written by trailing spouses

(1) A modest silence, by Sheila Coral Grimes http://www.sheilacoralgrimes.com/
(All proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to Fisher House, for the benefit of wounded soldiers)