In both childcare and elder care, the greatest weight in Western cultures typically falls on women's shoulders.
But what about caring for the environment?
Lauren Smith is a SSHRC post-doctoral researcher who will be working with Sarah Wolfe, a professor in Royal Roads University's School of Environment and Sustainability. Together, they will be investigating gender dynamics within environmental care work commitments among Canadians. Dr. Smith's work complements and extends Wolfe's SSHRC Partnership Development Grant research on environmental learning and behavioural change. Smith previously examined how water crises influenced people's judgements about female vs. male water managers.
"When you have decision-making teams that are more diverse, the research shows you get more environmentally responsible decisions or outcomes," says Smith, who earned undergrad degrees in psychology and philosophy, a master's in Sustainability Management, and a Vanier-funded PhD in Social and Ecological Sustainability from the University of Waterloo. "You can hear from more, different types of people and get a solution that will meet more people's needs, so it will be more accepted by people and have a positive impact."
She notes that some people may believe society is moving closer to gender equity but points out that in Canadian water-focused public and private sectors, the decision-makers are still mostly male (p.32), although the non-profit sector features relatively greater female leadership.
Amongst her previous research, Smith looked at how certain water crises activated death-thoughts, with the results published by the journal People & Nature, and studied whether communications during a water crisis functioned as a reminder of people's mortality.
Her post-doctoral research at Royal Roads will be, in part, an extension of previous work around and her interest in the environmental actions people do and do not take.
"I've always been curious about why people don't make the best choices for the environment. Why don't people act responsibly? We know what we should be doing," she says, noting with issues such as water conservation, "People have recognized there are these things they should be doing and they aren't doing it, but why not?"
Smith is also laying the groundwork for a long-term scholarly research agenda that, in part, explores gender dynamics in Western deathcare, examining the tension between care and death, love and fear to determine the connections to potentially improve deathcare in a society that actively avoids the topic rather than leaning on community to foster meaningful practices and relations.
Learn more about the School of Environment and Sustainability.
