I can tell you what the nuns I know do. The three sisters of the Benedictine Monastery of the Good Shepherd have just celebrated completion of their new monastery in Starr County TX, when they embarked on this mission they agreed to leave paid employment and rely on donations to build the monastery and pursue their charism, which is evangelization and pro-life witness and ministry in the Rio Grande Valley. They have a new postulant, welcome retreat groups each week, lead a group of over 50 Benedictine lay oblates who support the monastery and their work, are active in various pro-life initiatives in the diocese, and numerous evangelization outreaches. A lay-led Mexico outreach has recently been put under their auspices. Before getting permission to build the monastery they served in the valley for over 20 years in various capacities: teacher, catechist, DRE, running a day care center etc.
Our local Catholic school has a terrific sister as principal who done a great job increasing enrollment and endowment. Members of her order who live here serve in important diocesan administrative positions, as DREs, hospital chaplains, and teachers or school administrators. Another sister here directs adult evangelization and faith formation, and members of her order are DREs, evangelists, and run various ministries such as visiting the sick, working with immigrants, running community centers, and working with the elderly.
the bishop has welcomed a Mexican order of cloistered nuns whose primary charism is perpetual adoration of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist and prayer, and they are raising funds to build their convent. We don’t have a Catholic hospital here, but we do have a maternity center & women’s health clinic run by some other religious sisters which serves the poor and migrants. There is a Catholic hospital in Laredo which has sisters in the major administrative positions, including hospital administrator, director of nursing, and bioethicist.
These sisters do not define themselves by their “jobs” but by their “charisms” - education, health care, evangelization, prayer etc. - and what distinguishes them from laywomen is communal life, their prayer life which supercedes all other concerns, and their vows.