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.

But there’s an additional income penalty for artists who are female.

In an analysis of gender differences in the incomes of professional artists in Australia that we undertook in 2020, we found the creative incomes of women were 30% less than those of men.

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