An Asymmetrical Portrait: Exploring Gendered Income Inequality in the Arts

• In Event: 228 - Regular Session. Gendered Work and the Wage Gap

Abstract

While a large body of work has focused on gendered income inequalities in other fields, virtually no literature has explored this phenomenon within artistic careers. Yet, due to their historical emphases on flexibility, femininity, and egalitarianism, the arts represent a strategic research site through which we can assess gendered outcomes in the labor market more generally. We use the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP)—a nationwide survey of 33,801 individuals who have received degrees in the arts—to assess the gendered earnings gap for artists and for non-artists. We find that the gendered earnings gap is smaller for artists than for non-artists, though artistic careers are subject to some of the same social forces that drive disparity in other occupational realms. Yet in other ways, particularly as relates to family-level factors, gender “works” differently in the arts. Broader implications for scholarship on gender and work, as well as suggestions for further research and policy, are discussed.

Authors

• Danielle Jeanne Lindemann, State University of New Jersey-Rutgers

• Carly Ann Rush, Vanderbilt University

• Steven J. Tepper, Vanderbilt University