A spouse in L-2 status is employment-authorized incident to status and may work without first obtaining a separate category. Unmarried children under twenty-one accompany the family and may attend school, but nothing in the derivative status permits them to be employed.
The spouse may work; the teenager needs a calendar
For a household weighing a five-year assignment against a Quebec career, the spouse’s ability to work is often the deciding fact, and it should be confirmed early rather than assumed from something a colleague said about a different category. The practical steps are about documentation and how quickly an American employer will accept it. Children raise a timing question instead.
Derivative status ends at twenty-one, and where the assignment is expected to run the full five years, any child aged seventeen or older at the start will need an independent basis before it finishes. Planning that early is easier than arranging it under pressure. It is also worth noting that where the specialist ends the assignment at the classification ceiling, the household’s status ends with his, so any longer-term intention should be examined well before that point rather than in its final months.