Power and control of space and activities are often ascribed or achieved attributes of men. Women, and children, are often low or unpaid participants with limited power and control in these family businesses or other employment activities in the at home jobs.

In rural China since the mid 1980s, household-run private businesses as well as other forms of economic enterprises have emerged . Women participate in and benefit directly and indirectly from these opportunities, especially those at home jobs. However, as at home jobs paid-work opportunities increase, women’s opportunities in rural China are often "determined and constrained by the male household head". If a household operates a business, men more than women are likely to work in the business. Men are leading the development and expansion of at home jobs while women are increasingly specializing in agricultural work.

But, in many cases, the work done by women in at home jobs family run businesses is invisible, considered as incidental and "helping out." One speculation of why this pattern is developing, especially given the long Chinese tradition of households’ being involved in sideline economic activities mainly conducted by women, is that women are regarded as "filler-ins." That is, more junior women (i.e., not the mother-in-law) are perceived in the rural Chinese culture as having no well defined economic roles. Yet, these women do a large share of any household or economic activity. They "simply did the work that needed to be done–they ‘filled-in’".

In some regions the role of women in economic development, including through at home jobs, is more explicit. Women’s household income production and industrial productivity can be braided with the cultural values concerning the moral responsibilities of women–their roles in social reproduction as caring wives and mothers. In Taiwan the "economic miracle" is sustained by policies that promote employment, including at home jobs, and the participation of married women. It was indicated that the government slogan "Living Rooms as Factories" revealed the "particularity of Taiwan’s economic development, the special roles played in it by the state, and married women’s significant contribution to it."