Female artists earn less than men. Coming from a diverse cultural background incurs even more of a penalty – but there is good news, too

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.

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.

Source: Female artists earn less than men. Coming from a diverse cultural background incurs even more of a penalty – but there is good news, too