Trailing Spouses, Untapped Talent: The Expat Partner Employment Problem
You moved abroad for your partner’s career! And found your own quietly slipping away. You’re not alone. It’s one of the least-discussed costs of expat life — and one of the most common.
When Amaia Izar de la Fuente and Dr. Carlos Morales — both expats living in Germany — started working with other internationals, they noticed the same frustration. Again and again. Highly educated, career-driven people were arriving in Germany alongside their partners, only to find the system wasn’t built for them. So they decided to do something about it.
They co-created the Expats & Spouses Monitor, a research project, whose objective is to shed light on expat living in Germany. Their survey gathered responses from 864 expats from 88 nationalities living across 144 German cities. One of the most comprehensive pictures of expat life in Germany ever assembled.
The project ran until January 2025 and its full report and archive remain publicly available. I spoke with Amaia about their findings, and the conversation shifted my thinking about what we’re all collectively losing when expat partners can’t work.
Untapped Talent Within The Expat Community
Living abroad may sound exciting from the outside. And often it is. But it comes with real sacrifices — and those sacrifices fall disproportionately on women. According to the Permits Foundation, 85% of expat spouses are women, and 92% of those women hold higher education qualifications. That’s a remarkable talent pool sitting largely on the sidelines. The Expats & Spouses Monitor’s own research found that 80% of expat partners worked before relocating, yet only 42% were employed in Germany after the move. Across Europe, the picture isn’t much better. A Swedish study found that fewer than 4 in 10 accompanying partners of labour immigrants were employed the year after arriving. 78% of those partners are women.
The contradiction is striking: two-thirds of new jobs created in the EU between 2019 and 2023 were filled by non-EU foreign workers — yet the highly qualified partners of those very workers remain largely locked out of the labour market. So I asked Amaia why.
Q&A with Expat & Spouses Monitor
Q: With such a large pool of highly educated expat partners going underemployed, what can public organizations do to tap into this group?
A: In general, German companies are very traditional in their recruiting processes. The German Bewerbungsmappe and the references from previous employers is something that many international expats don’t have. Public organizations could make companies aware of these differences through informational campaigns.
Another example is organizing Job Fairs where companies can meet international expats and get a better idea about their skills.
Public organizations can also actively promote job-creation using economic incentives. Companies interested in working with an expat partner might benefit from some sort of tax deduction, for example. At the end of the day, it is more beneficial (and cheaper) searching properly for a qualified candidate inside the country than looking for him/her outside.
Companies and government agencies are sitting on a goldmine of international talent — and most of them don’t even realize it.
Q: What are companies overlooking when it comes to hiring expat partners?
A: Companies are overlooking the value of soft skills developed by living abroad. Competences such as empathy, cultural intelligence, problem-solving, resilience and comfort with uncertainty are highly relevant in today’s business world.
By far, however, companies are overlooking a key fact: most expatriates don’t come alone. Developing an international career, typically involves his/her partner as well, whose life is also affected by the shift. A substantial number of the so-called “trailing spouses” are individuals that are also committed to a career of their own.
Studies show that organisational support for accompanying partners is very scarce even though there is a strong link between partner’s adjustment and the success of the assignment.
Q: What more can companies do to help expat partners/families integrate?
A: When you move to a new country it is important to find a support group that understands your needs and helps you move forward. Companies that partner up with local networks can offer expat families a softer place to land.
More important in the middle term, is the support towards professional integration. For example, career counselling or work permit assistance, which, in turn, help to address typical dual-career issues such as career discontinuity.
Why This Still Matters in 2025
The Expats & Spouses Monitor completed its research in January 2025, but the problem it set out to document hasn’t gone away. If anything, it’s grown. The global expat population now stands at around 300 million people — roughly 3.6% of the world’s population. With talent shortages across Europe showing no signs of easing, the case for integrating expat partners into the workforce has never been stronger or more urgent.
The World Economic Forum has projected that over 85 million jobs could go unfilled by 2030 due to a lack of skilled workers. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of highly qualified expat partners sit underemployed in cities across Europe — not because they lack ability, but because the systems around them haven’t caught up.
That is, as Amaia and Carlos’s research put it, a rather dark picture. But it’s one that can change.
Thanks to Amaia Izar de la Fuente and Dr. Carlos Morales for spearheading this much needed research & identifying the distinct opportunities within the expat community.
Find more at Expats & Spouses Monitor.
Ref 1: Source: International Survey Summary Report From Permits Foundation
Similar Reading
10 podcasts you should be listening to if you are an expat in Germany
