An empirical question is whether this type of employment and the motivations for choosing to work from home jobs vary in some patterned way by gender. That is, do women and men systematically engage in different types of work from home jobs and for different reasons? If so, then gender and the way it shapes one's life would appear to be important conceptual tools for gaining better insight into work from home jobs as a social phenomenon. As home-worker, do men and women manage their time and activities differently? If this were true, then gender would be a force shaping the processes associated with work from home jobs. Do family dynamics, including interruptions to paidwork and family life, division of household labor, work-family conflict, and child supervision or care, differ, depending upon whether the home-worker is a man or a woman? If there are consistently different patterns for male and female home-workers related to these activities, then once again gender is to be regarded as an important force. Likewise, if the outcomes of work from home jobs, the rewards and costs, vary systematically by the gender of the workers, then once again the concept of gender and its social construction are important analytical tools for gaining understanding of this widespread employment life-style.

The popular press would have the public believe that a significant and expanding number of people are working at home for a variety of reasons. Among reasons frequently mentioned are that people increasingly choose work from home jobs to gain flexibility in balancing paid-work and family responsibilities, that corporations are increasingly contracting with at-home telecommuters to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and that many "down-sized" workers are starting their own work from home jobs in response to economic restructuring. The widespread nature of work from home jobs worldwide and indicates that in some societies significant proportions of the populations are home-workers.

Disagreement among researchers as to the definition of work from home jobs results in widely varying estimates of the numbers of these workers, disparities in estimates of their growth as an employment sub-population, and conflicting descriptions of their demographic characteristics. In the United States, for example, Deming analyzed the Current Population Survey using responses to a question about hours worked a home. He found that 67% of the home-workers were women, with work from home jobs mainly in the service industry. He did not include in his count those who worked from their homes with no other permanent work location. This exclusion eliminated many men such as electricians and plumbers whom others would consider to be home-workers.