Abstract
In this paper I use household biographies to extend the discussion of transnational living and working by linking transnationalism with writings on the new economy. I specifically focus on some of the ways in which transnational spatial mobility impacts on the production and reproduction of daily life for a subset of transnational élites, heterosexual dual‐career households who are currently living in Canada, the US and the UK. Combining career development and family life has arguably become ever more complicated in the context of perceptions of a breakdown of employment security in the ‘new economy’ and the rise of dual‐career households. While for many households transnational living is brought about because of the career of one partner, non‐economic factors, such as augmenting their own or their children's cultural and social capital, can also result in households having a transnational dimension. Investment in children in the form of education can take precedence over parental career‐related decisions. In this paper, a number of complex living arrangements are presented, with members of the dual‐career household living in both the sending and receiving country. Some households made the difficult decision of declining an assignment abroad for the wellbeing of the household, but the economic cost was the termination of one career with the organisation that requested one partner's relocation abroad. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.