Another point that must be considered is that each study and its findings in this blog are bound by a particular cultural context–modern and industrialized societies with an emphasis on individualism and achievement–and each context studied here has some sense of gender equality. It is important to consider what the gender effects discovered mean within a particular society and how these findings fit into larger considerations of jobs at home as a global phenomenon. Whereas jobs at home might be seen and promoted in the United States or Canada as an effective way for women to combine child care and employment, it might not be so readily apparent that such beliefs are consistent with a more globally woven pattern of export-oriented business production that serves to perpetuate the image of women as secondary workers, more fit for jobs at home duties than those required in the public spheres of employment. Cross-country comparative analysis, either in primary research or in an integration and critique of findings from various locations, can further pinpoint the roles that gender plays in these contexts of jobs at home.

A final caution is in order. Gender is certainly an organizing factor in how societies are structured and in how people live their daily lives. In each society and subculture there is a gender ideology that gets played out in lived reality. Being a woman is different from being a man. The differences are reflected in choices about family division of labor, including income earning, household management and production, and propinquous production. But people are actors on their own behalf, having agency and making choices. Not all women jobs at home are alike; nor are all men home-workers. When looking for gender difference, there is some danger in seeing and reifying more differences than might otherwise be important. So, although gender is certainly important, researchers and others must keep in mind that there are differences within genders and that not all members of one gender or the other will be similar.