Psychology Month Profile: Jenn Gordon

Jenn Gordon

The pandemic, and the resulting lockdown, has not affected everyone equally. This is true across nearly every demographic, including the most highly educated among us. In a survey of almost 1,000 academic faculty members, it was found that parents of young children were less productive and worse off all around – especially, and most significantly, women who were parents of those young children. Women like Dr. Jenn Gordon.

Dr. Gordon is an associate professor at the University of Regina, and a Canada Research Chair in the bio-psychosocial determinants of women’s mental health. She is also the mom of three very young children. Her husband is an accountant. That meant that when the pandemic first started, causing lockdowns back in March of 2020, Dr. Gordon’s husband was in the thick of a suddenly more complicated tax season.

With her husband working long hours preparing taxes, their children gravitated toward Mom – even though Mom had a huge amount of work to do herself. In addition to her work with the University of Regina, the research she does on the effects of estrogen on the mood of menopausal women, and her work with the Women’s Mental Health Research Unit, Dr. Gordon is also the editor for the Health Psychology and Behavioural Medicine newsletter at the CPA. It was the section newsletter that sparked the idea for this study.

Dr. Gordon and Dr. Justin Presseau, the Chair of the Health Psychology and Behavioural Medicine Section, were discussing article ideas for the newsletter. Dr. Gordon says,

“I suggested a piece that talked about academics, and the tough time that faculty are having. Particularly around parenthood, and juggling having kids at home while working and that sort of thing. [Dr. Presseau] suggested that instead of just a piece, why don’t we survey profs across Canada and ask how they’re doing. So we did.”

Almost 1,000 professors responded to the survey, and many of the results were as expected. Most experienced a decrease in work satisfaction, in productivity and publications and grant submissions – with data collection being totally on hold at that time. What was more surprising however, was the size of the gap in those areas between academic faculty who had kids under the age of 13, and everybody else. And then the even bigger gap between men and women who were parents to those young children.

Women were worse off compared to men. Fewer grant submissions, fewer first-author publications, and an ever-widening gap in work satisfaction. Dr. Gordon acknowledges that this survey represents only a slice in time, a snapshot of where we were when the pandemic and the lockdowns began. A follow-up study is in the works, to see whether these effects diminished over time or increased. Her situation today hearkens back to concerns Dr. Gordon had when she first decided to become a researcher several years ago – the idea of work-life balance.

“Could I have a family if I was a researcher, would I have to give up my life? I was always flip-flopping, but over time I decided that I really love research, and the choice became clear.”

While she found that work-life balance soon after embarking on a career in research, specifically research into hormone levels and estrogen levels and how they affect the mood of menopausal women, the pandemic has altered that balance significantly – both for the participants in her survey, and for Dr. Gordon herself. But it has also provided her with an interesting, and timely, research study that, depending on how long the pandemic lasts, might produce more studies down the road on academic faculty, gender disparities, and work-life balance for parents of young kids. Parents like Jenn herself.