What's your other job?

A census analysis of arts employment in Australia (‘the census study’) analyses data from the past three Australian Population Censuses.

This study was undertaken by Peter Higgs of the Centre for Creative Industries and Innovation at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) under the leadership of Professor Stuart Cunningham. Other contributors were Simon Freebody, research assistant and Peter Anderson, freelance writer.

This study analyses data from three Australian Population Censuses (1996, 2001 and 2006) in relation to arts employment. It includes a new measure of the size of total employment in the arts by including all relevant occupations and industries. It also gives a picture of artists working in non-arts industries and compares working artist incomes with other occupations. This analysis is based upon peoples the ‘main job’ that people reported in lead up to the Census.

This report includes analysis of:

A definition of the arts sector using occupation (ANZSCO) and industry (ANZSIC) codes
A measure of total arts employment and incomes
Arts employment characteristics: gender, employment, age, and labourforce status
Trends between 1996 and 2006.