Ever since Madame Curie said "Oui!" and probably well before, there have been dual-career couples in science. Today, finding a satisfying and well-paying job is difficult at the best of times, but what happens when there are two of you? Job hunting takes on an extra dimension when both partners are looking for those rare positions. Often they are forced to live apart or maintain two residences, sometimes having to fly between ports to see each other, and then only when either one is not in a conference. Getting tenured positions for two at the same institution or even the same city can be almost impossible.

In many cases, it seems, the so-called trailing spouse - a rather dubious phrase - gets to take on an administrative, part-time, or basically lesser role while the partner scrambles up the academic ladder. It cannot be easy for someone to watch as the academic career of his partner soars as she garners publications, gathers promotions, and gains peer respect while he idles along with little prospect of catching up.

There are many permutations - couples may both be in the same scientific field or not, they may be at a similar stage in their respective careers or not, and they may or may not have children. Questions constantly arise from these permutations, such as how do both partners attend the conference in their joint field when child care is not available. The problems can be immense when one partner heads for a center of excellence while a more "junior" spouse stands little chance of tenure there. Chemical engineer Diane Rossiter, for instance, is in a dual-career relationship but has decided, due to pressures of work and family commitments, to take a career break now that her husband is changing jobs in academia. She would have been condemned to commuting some 2.5 hours each day, otherwise, in order to maintain her position as a lecturer at Loughborough University.

There are, of course, many successful dual-career couples: University of Washington zoologists James Truman and Lynn Riddiford, Oxford neuroscientist Susan Greenfield and Oxford chemist-author Peter Atkins, bird researchers Kenneth and Mary Able at New York State University, molecular biologists Seth Schor and Ana Schor at Scotland's University of Dundee, geneticist Ruth Shaw and statistician Frank Shaw at Minnesota University, and crystallographer Judith Howard, the first female full professor of chemistry in England and her consultant physician husband David. The list goes on.

But institutions that ignore the two-body problem can find themselves facing the loss of their primary candidate when satisfactory employment for the spouse fails to arise. Even when a candidate accepts a job, he might soon leave if better prospects come to light elsewhere for his spouse. Traditionally, according to Laurie McNeil of North Carolina University at Chapel Hill and Marc Sher of the College of William and Mary in a report on the plight of dual-career physicists, the male partner has taken the lead and the female followed behind. But for younger couples and for partnerships where there is not much of an academic disparity between them, this is not such an easy choice to make. Indeed, the issue is often even more complicated for same sex couples.

McNeil and Sher point out that, at least as far as physics is concerned, there are very few institutions that face the problems concerning dual-career couples. The establishment of formal programs to assist a spouse have been slow to gain prevalence, although some establishments have had policies in place since the 1970s. Institutions can so easily cite anti-nepotism laws so they can shrug off responsibility for a new employee's partner. Departmental culture, too, can be very resistant to accommodating dual-career couples. Colleagues may not only perceive nepotism, but also see personal problems impinging on their laboratory time and, ultimately, having a disruptive influence on the department. Indeed, problems can go deeper, as one academic in a U.K. university found when her husband got a lower-ranked job at her institution and could not cope with having his wife as his "line manager." The couple ended up in the divorce courts.

Rhonda Malone first came across the problems facing dual-career couples some five years ago. She took on a new job at the University of Maryland (UMD) with the aim of establishing the Dual Career Employment Assistance Program there. She points out that helping new recruits avoid being distracted by personal matters and giving them a positive vibe about the university are the prime movers. "The purpose of the program is both to facilitate recruitment and to aid in getting new faculty off to a good start," she says. Such programs also help to "formalize" an institution's response to assistance, such as offering new recruits useful information like job listings and contacts at local institutions, research centers, and other major employers.

University of Maryland's scheme is particularly successful because there are so many opportunities for biomedical researchers. There are several other institutions, federal government facilities, many companies, hospitals, and other research centers in the area. On two occasions, Malone told HMS Beagle, spouses have obtained tenure-track positions at UMD. For the first, Malone helped the male partner find an interesting and relevant job initially; then the department hired him the next year. "Our program is broadly for significant others. I've worked with spouses, partners, and fiancees."

"While our program doesn't guarantee a job at the university or elsewhere for the unemployed spouse," adds Nancy Crist of Ohio University, "it is designed to serve as a job-hunting resource." She adds that Ohio has a Dual Career Fund available to help fund university positions for spouses of current and prospective employees. Indeed, there are some imaginative financial arrangements possible at various institutions. Splitting a salary is sometimes possible irrespective of the types of positions involved, as long as they are roughly equivalent. But, a job share can only work well if the partners are at the same academic level. As a formal solution it can have problems, such as how to deal with promotion, cover disciplinary issues, and approach financial aspects such as benefits, raises, insurance, and pensions. There are also other issues. What happens if one retires? What if one partner dies? What if a couple splits? The big advantage of a job share is the potential for freeing up time for other pursuits. Even then, couples might find their total working hours far exceeding 100% without additional recompense.

Despite the best efforts of those running such programs, there are several other negatives, such as the reluctance of academic departments approached to make special dispensations even for the short term. It must be in an employer's best interests to help both partners. Couples where both partners are in satisfying job positions are more likely to stick around and be academically productive.

The Graduate College Scholars Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) was initiated in 1984. According to associate vice chancellor for research Janet Glaser, problems facing dual-career couples in what is a much smaller than average community can be a particularly severe problem. Indeed, there is only one institution of higher education - the university - so there are few options, especially if both individuals are in the same field. Despite that, Glaser says the the UIUC scholars program has provided a successful transition for placement of spouses in faculty employment or in academic professional or administrative positions, especially in the social sciences and humanities.

Computer professional Letty Foulkes, who is spending a year in the United States while her husband is on sabbatical at Cornell, says "Dual-career couples still face problems." Her husband is a reader in physics, and she adds that if they wanted to move he would have to find a job first because his is the more specialized field. She does concede that although she could be considered a "trailing spouse," she feels employable and could find a challenging and interesting job in her field. Nancy Cox, a geneticist at the University of Chicago, believes part of the problem is simply male dominance in science and academia. "In many disciplines, the most successful practitioners were successful, in part, because they had a joint effort," she says, "There were and are plenty of labs in which a spouse, usually the wife, is responsible for running a big lab. When women go into the workforce, they almost never have that kind of support - their husbands have lives and careers."

Indeed, the problem of having a tenured spouse can lead to long-term disaffection by academia. Elizabeth Griffin, an astrophysicist, has spent her career in Oxbridge on a long succession of short-term grants. She attributes this state of affairs largely to the attitude of universities to her then being married to a tenured staff member. She was told, when attempting to join the faculty, that she "didn't need a job," she "had a husband and he had a job," and that she "wasn't starving."

David Jefferies, a senior lecturer at Surrey University, is married to Christina, a professor of social gerontology at the University of London. They have been a dual-career couple since she got her Ph.D. in 1978. "It has posed constraints," he says, "many for her, fewer for me, although she is better adapted to the routine work requirements of modern academia" and, he adds, "she has taken over the lead, if such there is, in terms of status and income."

Geographer Megan Blake of Sheffield University in England has studied the issue of dual-career couples. She herself left New England and New Hampshire where her husband was working at Dartmouth College. In her words, she "trailed" her husband to Leeds and secured a job at nearby Sheffield. Blake works with husband Adrian Bailey (Leeds University) and Thomas Cooke (Connecticut University) on career trajectories for married couples. "Many U.S. universities will consider offering a second post to a trailing spouse," she says, "but, historically, this second post was for the female partner and often involved some type of administrative or temporary job rather than a job with a reasonable career ladder."

The whole issue of dual-career couples can affect almost anyone in a partnership. There are countless permutations and this article did not even begin to address the added dimension of same-sex relationships. The problems have been around for a long time, ranging from a commutable home to dealing with divorce when a couple had undertaken a job share. There are some initiatives and, for some couples, the situation has improved. But, says Blake, "The point needs to be made over and over that the issue of dual-career couples needs to be addressed."