The authors in the blog posts that follow present the results of several studies, showing how stay at home jobs, its causes, context, and consequences, is often gender-linked. A variety of theoretical approaches are described and applied to the study of gender and stay at home jobs. The empirical studies focus on the United States and Canada; one article is a review of literature with a more global perspective. Each empirical study presents a well-developed literature review that sets the analysis in context. All of the analyses shed light on what is acknowledged worldwide as an important means for many workers to contribute to household income. Each article concludes with a discussion of what the findings imply for further research on stay at home jobs as well as interventions such as policy or education
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The studies show that there are inputs, processes, and outputs of stay at home jobs that are linked to gender. For example, the number and age of children in the homeand the gender of the home-worker are related to the decision to purchase child care. In general, unless the woman spends time away from the home that is related to her stay at home jobs, child care is not purchased. When the home-worker is a man, it is more likely that child care will be purchased, especially if there are two or more children under the age of 5 years. This pattern might reflect a gender distinction in "who watches the children," or perhaps a difference in the types of stay at home jobs that male and female home-worker perform. A clearer answer could be obtained by investigating men and women performing the same paid stay at home jobs who also had the same ages and numbers of children. Controlling in this manner could make it clearer whether the gender of the home-worker was the operative variable related to hiring outside child care.

Some people, both men and women, opt for stay at home jobs in order to fulfill desires to be at home, to be around family, to have more flexibility. Family life can be of utmost importance, and stay at home jobs can be an effective means to furthering this end. But stay at home jobs might be a choice that is not equally available to men and women, or, if available, not equally chosen by both. Perhaps women, in greater proportion than men, do opt for stay at home jobs in order to be better able to fulfill other duties to their families. What makes men who choose to work at home for family reasons different from other men? Are male home -workers who choose this life-style because of the primacy of their families more akin to female home -workers than to other male home -workers in other regards? More study is necessary to find out the influence gender plays and under what conditions.