Benhamou, F.

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7 Artists’ labour marketsFrançoise BenhamouArtists and cultural workers constitute a very heterogeneous and a priorinon-standard population. Everyone keeps in mind a long list of starvingartists, and a series of artists who died unknown before becoming super-stars on the modern art and cultural markets. This entry examines twoquestions: how can we describe cultural employment (and who should beconsidered as an artist) and are there some characteristics of employmentin the cultural field that may justify a unique and unconventional theoreti-cal framework for its analysis? Since decisions on labour markets play amajor role for the crucial question of the selection of talent, this chapteremphasizes also the question of developing labour market policies towardssupporting cultural employment.Cultural employment: a wide spectrum of jobs Methodological questions are numerous. The conclusions of empiricaltesting of hypotheses about the characteristics of employment vary accord-ing to their sources. Censuses are most reliable for well-known reasons(exhaustiveness and possibility of comparisons over time). In Europe theygenerally rely on what the individuals declare as their main job. Since indi-viduals often engage in several occupations inside or outside the culturalsphere, they are considered as artists in accordance with their own reportsof main income sources during the reporting period. The American Censusidentifies artists on a controversial criterion, only the job in the previousweek. Nevertheless, many studies use Census data (among them: Santos,1976; O’Brien and Feist, 1995; Filer, 1986).Researchers also use surveys. Despite their more limited scope, theyprovide qualitative information, especially on the nature of multiple job-holding, that is probably the most distinctive aspect of artists’ labourmarket involvement.It is not easy to determine the perimeter of cultural activities and todefine professional criteria. A Census does not distinguish between non-profit and for-profit institutions where artists are involved; recreational ser-vices and the performing arts are generally included. Some countries,especially Germany, include craft jobs in the field of cultural employment,leading to an overevaluation of numbers compared with other countries. Inthis chapter, we emphasize artistic jobs that represent a part of cultural69employment (that also includes administrative jobs, professors and so on).The definition of artists is often rather wide and blurred (except in Finland,where a strict definition was adopted): this point is a source of debate, sinceexpanding the definition may change average artist earnings.Many studies argue that artists behave like anyone else, and that the char-acteristics of cultural employment are close to those of the general work-force. For example, regional distribution of cultural employment in theUnited Kingdom reflects the regional distribution of cultural activities,generally concentrated in urban centres. Contrary to a preconceived idea,there is no evidence of a more frequent gender discrimination in the artsthan elsewhere; Cowen (1996) shows that women facing incentives meetwith success in their artistic endeavours. Though the rate of unemploymentis comparable to that of all workers, artistic jobs seem more unstable inFrance and in the United Kingdom, but less in the United States (Filer,1986). But part-time, temporary and fixed-term contracts, second jobhold-ing and self-employment are much more frequent than in the general work-force. They can be considered as non-standard forms of employment(Benhamou, 2000).These flexible working patterns are frequent and even unavoidablebecause of a twofold set of factors. Firstly, this is so because of the discon-tinuity of activity. Individuals undertake several jobs at the same time; theyalso switch from one job to another, since projects are limited in time (sea-sonal jobs in festivals, artists involved in a series of concerts, photogra-phers working for a short-term project and so on).This characteristicimplies that the building of a strong reputation from job to job is the bestsource of employability in artistic labour markets: ‘reputational’ competi-tion is central for employees. Reputation and eligibility are not identifiedwith being kept on in a firm – in many respects the contrary applies: themore numerous the job contracts, the higher the reputation. This issuerelies on a paradox: in spite of a higher percentage of graduates in thisfield, one can observe the weak importance of a diploma for careers: expe-rience and reputation are much more central. Since diplomas have a lowsignalling capacity, people enjoy ease of entry to careers, especially thoseof visual artists (Throsby and Thompson, 1995); this is a source of over-supply.Secondly, flexibility is a consequence of the specific qualificationsrequired for projects, resulting from the property of ‘infinite diversity’(Caves, 2000) of cultural goods that are often produced on a project-by-project basis.One of the consequences of flexibility is the multiplication of short-termcontracts, leading to an illusory growth rate of employment: even if culturalemployment increased more rapidly than general employment in most70 A handbook of cultural economicsEuropean countries during the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s (Greffe,1999), the rate is overstated by the reduction in the duration of the contract.Can we consider artists as utility maximizers? For some researchers, theyseek the optimal set of pecuniary and non-monetary rewards (as whatAdam Smith calls ‘public admiration’) for their efforts. But hard training,low rate of success stories, risky careers and short-term contracts seem tobe inherent to artistic choices: these general characteristics of artisticemployment could lead a rational individual to choose other careers.A theoretical frameworkAmong the ‘clichés’ concerning artists, one of the strongest is their lowaverage earnings, including an opposition between two labour markets: onefor the superstars and the other for all the more or less starving artists.Filer (1989) analyses the 1980 US Census data and concludes that the‘starving artist’ is a myth: for individuals having similar educational levelsand personal characteristics, the average artist earned about 10 per cent lessthan he would have earned in a non-artistic job. Moreover, when lifetimedifferences are taken into account, Filer shows that the gap becomes almostnegligible: the lifetime earnings are less than 2.9 per cent greater for non-artists. Filer concludes that artistic labour markets are not different fromothers. Nevertheless, the analysis is compatible with the existence of a duallabour market.Other studies argue that, though not poor, artists suffer an earningspenalty (Wassall and Alper, 1992). The sources of the divergence rely onthe data basis (a strict or broad definition of artists), the country and theperiod. If there is such a penalty, one should consider that conventionaltheories of labour market are inappropriate in the case of artists. An orig-inal contribution is provided by Throsby (1994), who constructs a model oflabour supply of multiple jobholding artists. If the alternative consists inspending time in artistic or non-artistic jobs, when relative wages increasefor non-artistic jobs, individuals spend less time on the latter activity, sincethey have obtained the amount of earnings that they need in order topursue what they consider as their main job. This behaviour reflects thestrength of their preferences for creative labour. This does not conform toconventional theories and favours a specific treatment of art labourmarkets. As Throsby notes, ‘arts work tends to be less sensitive to financialconsiderations because of its nature as compared to non-arts work’ (ibid.,p.264). Throsby also emphasizes the changes in behaviour between threedifferent categories of artists (initial creative artists, performing artists andothers). Nevertheless, a simple human capital theoretical framework canexplain the distribution of earnings in artistic professions.Many studies focus on the distribution of earnings rather than on theirArtists’ labour markets 71average level. In Hollywood, artists are classified in two categories, A andB list, A artists belonging to the happy few successful artists who earn muchmore and dominate their segment of the market.Thus labour is considered as heterogeneous, and this leads to artisticlabour markets being analysed as atypical and non-competitive markets.Artists are imperfect substitutes for each other. Rosen studies the distribu-tion of rewards among artists. He observes that, whereas a few artistsreceive enormous amounts of money and dominate their activity, othersremain poorly paid. This gap is disproportionately large, compared withthe differences in talent. He emphasizes two reasons for this: firstly, in acontext of a consensus about talent (artists offer vertically differentiatedservices), and with a hypothesis that talent is observable without any cost,he considers that there is no substitute for any particular talent. Thereforeprices can increase without leading to a decrease in demand. Secondly, theincreasing size of markets, due to new media, allows joint consumption.Long-term contracts are rare, and one can observe the quasi-absence ofinternal job markets. This high degree of flexibility may be interpreted asan argument in favour of the validity of standard theories for art labourmarket analysis. The search-theoretic approach provides a framework forunderstanding the succession of employment and non-employment experi-ences. Since it makes the hypothesis that search costs would be compen-sated for by long-time commitments, it is unfortunately inappropriate in thecase of artists, in spite of its hypothesis of labour heterogeneity: firms donot expect to be in business with the same artists indefinitely, but only on atemporary project basis.Thus, for many researchers, artistic labour markets act as lotteries. AsAdam Smith recognized in The Wealth of Nations, despite the risk linkedto professions where ‘twenty fail for one that succeeds’, one can observe thegrowing number of aspirants. Many factors explain such a paradox: peopletry to enter artistic professions when they are rather young and can face ahigh degree of uncertainty. And, as in the case of lotteries, winners mayearn much money and artists overestimate their chances of fame andsuccess. High rewards attract risk-seeking individuals:Since the probability of rising to the top group is so uncertain, entry into thesefields has many aspects of a lottery in which only a few obtain the big prizes. Thislottery is tempered and made less costly by considerable turnover, especiallyamong young entrants. As new entrants gain information that their prospectsare dim, they turn to other, less risky adventures. (Rosen, 1986, p.681)A simple explanation of behaviours relies on the age distribution of artists,who are younger than the general workforce: hope of success, and pro-pensity to assume risk, are higher at a younger age. The accumulation of72 A handbook of cultural economicsexperience is the only way to determine one’s chances of success. ForMacDonald (1988), young artists study the critics and public reactions toevaluate their probability of succeeding. At each stage of a sequential pro-cess, they decide to go on or to abandon their career.Excess of supply is accentuated by the policy developed by art schools,who offer too many programmes compared to future prospects, especiallyfor classical musicians and singers. Towse (1993) estimates an order of mag-nitude of private and social rate of return to training as a singer. She con-cludes that human capital investment is less efficient for arts occupations.Moreover, with public funding for training artists, if support leads to adecrease in the cost of artistic training, the number of artists will increaseand the wages will fall.Regulation of labour marketsArtists represent a small percentage of the total workforce (1.9 per cent inFrance in 1995 – Observatoire de l’emploi culturel, 1996; 1.5 per cent in theUSA in 1998 – Heilbrun and Gray, 2001), but are a very vociferous group;moreover, their living and working conditions may determine the level andquality of the production of culture. Some studies show that the informa-tion process for selecting consumption leads not only to a superstar phe-nomenon, but also to a totally random selection of talent. For Adler(1985), information costs lead consumers to choose what other people havealready selected, according to a mimetic process. Market forces alone donot select naturally the most talented: selected performers may be untal-ented, and the inertia of consumers’ behaviour leads them to dominate anincreasing share of the market.One can consider this issue as a justification for regulation, aiming tocounteract the natural tendency of the market to eliminate in the short runtalented but unknown artists. Three sources of regulation emerge: unions’negotiations, specific status provided by social security schemes, and artists’rights.Unionization is more frequent among musicians, actors and techniciansthan among writers and artists. Situations vary considerably, from isolatedartists dealing with gallery owners to the case of scriptwriters and actors inHollywood. Caves (2000) emphasizes the propensity of unions to act infavour of the level of wages, and to erect entry barriers to newcomers. Fromthis point of view, unions do not help the search for talent.Do artists need specific social security schemes, that would allow them tospend more time to enter the market? In France a specific scheme for theperforming arts and the film industry, called ‘intermittency status’, com-pensates for unemployment periods of artists and technicians who haveworked a minimum of 507 hours a year. This aims to compensate for theArtists’ labour markets 73precarious characteristic of artistic life, and to help artists to stay free tobuild their careers. A similar scheme exists in the Netherlands. Gurgandand Menger (1996) emphasize the perverse effect of such a scheme, whichleads to moral hazard incidences: oversupply and also overuse of thesystem. But this scheme can be viewed as supporting the arts through sup-porting the artists. Withers (1985) examines the hypothesis of artists subsi-dizing the arts by accepting low incomes in Australia. Intermittency ofemployment can be analysed in the same framework as a hidden subsidythat decreases work costs. It has led to a learning process: firms use it inorder to diminish the risk linked to the discontinuity of their activity andto the ‘nobody knows property’ (Caves, 2000) and also in order to avoidlong-term employment commitments. For their part, artists facing achange in labour contracts, with a growing propensity to sign short-termones, try to optimize their chances of being eligible by reaching the thresh-old required by the legislation.Policies may also stimulate self-employment as an alternative to depen-dent employment for the unemployed, as in the case of Great Britain. Butmost countries do not provide specific protection for artists.A third source of regulation is provided by the artists’ property rights.The mere fact that the appreciation of artists’ works often needs a longperiod of time (McNertney and Waits, 1984) constitutes an argument infavour of a complementary system of payment. This characteristic maylegitimate a system of payment that takes time into account, through royal-ties, intellectual property payments or artists’ resale rights (for more detailson artists’ rights, see Chapter 8 in this volume). Contracts naturally take thetime factor into account through optional clauses and other advantages,but such advantages are reserved for well-known and powerful artists.Concluding remarksLabour market economics provides a powerful theoretical framework foranalysing art labour markets. Nevertheless, the specific features of artisticlabour supply certainly require more empirical surveys, and also someresearch into the demand side, and the different forms of earnings, includ-ing optional recurrent contracts, that link a creative artist to the few regularproducers.See also:Chapter 54: Superstars; Chapter 55: Support for artists.ReferencesAdler, M. (1985), ‘Stardom and Talent’, American Economic Review, 75, 208–12.Benhamou, F. (2000), ‘The Opposition of Two Models of Labour Market Adjustment. The74 A handbook of cultural economicsCase of the Audiovisual and Performing Arts in France and in the United Kingdom’,Journal of Cultural Economics, 24, 301–19.Caves, R.E. (2000), Creative Industries. Contracts Between Art and Commerce, Cambridge:Harvard University Press.Cowen, T. (1996), ‘Why Women Succeed, and Fail in the Arts’, Journal of Cultural Economics,20(2), 93–113.Filer, R.K. (1986), ‘The “Starving Artist” – Myth or Reality? Earnings of Artists in the UnitedStates’, Journal of Political Economy, 94(1), February, 56–75.Filer, R.K. (1989), ‘The Economic Condition of Artists in America’, in D.V. Shaw et al. (eds),Cultural Economics 88: An American Perspective, Akron: Association for CulturalEconomics.Greffe, X. (1999), L’emploi culturel à l’âge du numérique, Paris: Anthropos.Gurgand, M. and P.-M. Menger (1996), ‘Work and Compensated Unemployment in thePerforming Arts. Exogenous and Endogenous Uncertainty in Artistic Labour Markets’, inV. Ginsburgh and P.-M. Menger (eds), Economics of the Arts, Amsterdam: Elsevier,pp.347–81.Heilbrun, J. and C.M. Gray (2001), The Economics of Art and Culture, 2nd edn, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.MacDonald, G.M. (1988), ‘The Economics of Rising Stars’, American Economic Review, 78,155–66.McNertney, E.M. and C.R. Waits (1984), ‘An Economic Model of Artistic Behavior’, Journalof Cultural Economics, 8, June, 49–60.O’Brien, J. and A. Feist (1995), Employment in the arts and cultural industries: an analysis ofthe 1991 Census, London: Arts Council of England.Observatoire de l’emploi culturel (1996), ‘L’emploi culturel en 1995 d’après l’enquête surl’emploi de l’INSEE’, Paris: Ministère de la Culture.Rosen S. (1986), ‘The Theory of Equalizing Differences’, in O. Ashenfelter and R. Layard(eds), Handbook of Labour Economics, vol. 2, Amsterdam: North-Holland, pp.641–92.Santos, F.P. (1976), ‘Risk, Uncertainty and the Performing Arts’, in M. Blaug (ed.), TheEconomics of Arts, Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Throsby, D. (1994), ‘A Work-Preference Model of Artist Behaviour’, in A. Peacock and I.Rizzo (eds), Cultural Economics and Cultural Policies, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic,pp.69–80.Throsby, D. and B. Thompson (1995), The Artists at Work: Some Further Results for the 1988Survey of Individual Artists, Redfern, Australia: Australia Council.Towse, R. (1993), Singers in the Marketplace: the Economics of the Singing Profession, Oxford:Clarendon Press.Wassall, G.H. and N.O. Alper (1992), ‘Toward a Unified Theory of the Determinants of theEarnings of Artists’, in R. Towse and A. Khakee (eds), Cultural Economics, Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, pp.187–200.Withers, G. (1985), ‘Artists’ Subsidy of the Arts’, Australian Economic Papers, 24, December,290–95.Artists’ labour markets 75

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