Female artists earn less than men; larger gap for women from non-English speaking backgrounds

David Throsby, Katya Petetskaya and Sunny Y. Shin examine the latest data regarding arts incomes.
A woman holds her violin and bow protectively.

Artists all over the world, regardless of their gender, earn considerably less than professionals in occupations requiring similar levels of education and qualifications.

This is true even after allowing for differences in such things as hours worked, education and training, time spent in childcare and so on. This income penalty on women artists was greater than the gender pay gap of 16% experienced in the overall Australian workforce at the time.

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