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Impact and Value – Research facts sheet:
Employment and participation in the arts
Contemporary Australians do have a HIGH participation rate in the arts, in terms of both attending and creating work.
Australian participation rates are in the same HIGH band as Germany, France, Austria and Great Britain. In 2009, 72% of surveyed participants attended at least one arts event and 41% had engaged in creative participation in the arts. (More Than Bums on Seats: Australian Participation in the Arts (2010) Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney)
Reproduced with the consent of the Australia Council. All other rights reserved.
Australians' attitudes towards the arts are positive. They widely believe that the arts should be an important part of every Australians’ education.
Australians also believe that arts make for a richer and more meaningful life and that there are plenty of opportunities to get involved in the arts in Australia. (More Than Bums on Seats: Australian Participation in the Arts (2010) Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney, p.5)
Reproduced with the consent of the Australia Council. All other rights reserved.
Australia’s young people, those under 26 years of age, are highly engaged with the arts and in innovative media, displaying higher levels of creative participation than the rest of the population.
Arts participation levels amongst younger people appear to be on the rise; this group were more likely to have increased their involvement in the arts in the last year.
With a higher concentration of internet users, young people are engaging with the arts in new and evolving ways; online arts creators are predominantly aged 15–24 years. (More Than Bums on Seats: Australian Participation in the Arts (2010) Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney, p.5)
Reproduced with the consent of the Australia Council. All other rights reserved.
Employment across the multiple sectors of the creative industries is growing and Australia offers arts educated young people a range of pathways and opportunities.
There are almost as many artists and people in arts-related occupations employed in other industries than there are in total in the arts industries. Embedded employment, that is artists and those in arts-related occupations employed in the other industries, increased as a proportion of total arts employment – from 69% in 1996 to 76% in 2006. (Cunningham, S. & Higgs, P. (2010) What’s Your Other Job?: A Census Analysis of Arts Employment in Australia. Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney, pp.10-12)
Reproduced with the consent of the Australia Council. All other rights reserved.
In 2006 artist occupations employed in other creative industries and arts-related occupations in other creative industries earned around 1.5–7.5% higher income than the national average. (Cunningham, S. & Higgs, P. (2010) What’s Your Other Job?: A Census Analysis of Arts Employment in Australia. Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney, p.5)
Reproduced with the consent of the Australia Council. All other rights reserved.
The terrain of hybrid, cross-arts forms are a field for which young people are well educated; as early as 2006 those working across art forms had 61–73% full-time employment. (Cunningham, S. & Higgs, P. (2010) What’s Your Other Job?: A Census Analysis of Arts Employment in Australia. Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney, p.16)
Reproduced with the consent of the Australia Council. All other rights reserved.
Young people dominate arts-related employment. In 2006 the average age of practising artists was over 45 whereas in the more stable fields of employment the age distribution peaked sharply at 25 to 34-year-olds, especially in graphics and fashion design. (Cunningham, S. & Higgs, P. (2010) What’s Your Other Job?: A Census Analysis of Arts employment in Australia. Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney, pp.10–12)
Reproduced with the consent of the Australia Council. All other rights reserved.