Widening The Lens: Social inequality and arts participation

• Almost every respondent – 96% – identified that they were engaging with the arts, either by reading for pleasure, listening to music, attending arts and cultural events and venues, or by making art themselves.
• A person’s level of arts and cultural engagement increases with higher levels of education. Findings show those with no post-school qualifications had lower levels of participation across each type of creative activity. Those with university qualifications had the highest levels of participation.
• People in occupations that are generally associated with using more skills, and more complex skills (requiring more formal education or professional training), have stronger rates of arts and cultural participation. These occupations are usually understood to be of higher status or higher socio-economic positions.
• People with greater household incomes have stronger rates of participation across all arts activities. Low-income respondents had lower rates of attendance, creation and reading, and were more likely to select ‘because it is too expensive’ as their main reason for not attending. Making ends meet is also an important condition for attending arts events or venues and for participating in arts and cultural activities.
• Those who self-identify as ‘lower class’ or ‘working class’ have significantly lower participation rates across all four creative activity types. Those who self-identify as ‘upper-middle’ and ‘upper-class’ have significantly higher rates of arts participation.
• City dwellers are more likely to participate in arts and cultural activities than those living in suburbs or regional areas. Almost four out of five respondents living in big cities attend arts events or venues (78%), compared to 70% of respondents who live in outer city suburbs or outskirts, and just over half (54%) who live in regional areas.
• Those who trust other people are more active in arts participation, particularly in attending or creating.

Social Factors in Cultural Participation is a series of four factsheets based on the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2019. The series is produced through a partnership between Creative Australia, RMIT University and the University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre. 

Factsheet 1: Parental Occupational Class  

This factsheet explores the role that parents’ occupational class plays in the shaping the next generation’s participation in arts and culture (as adults).  

Findings support the long-recognised role played by mothers on shaping arts and cultural practices, and provide further detail on how parental occupation class influences the likelihood of cultural attendance, creative participation, and reading for pleasure among Australian adults. 

These insights reinforce the importance of providing opportunities to engage with arts and culture in schools and other public environments, so that all young people have access to arts and culture regardless of their family circumstances.    

Factsheet 2: Gender, Social Status and Cultural Attendance     

This factsheet explores the effects of education, self-identified class and marital status on cultural attendance, and how these vary according to gender. 

Findings show that education, class and marital status affect cultural attendance differently for men and women. This emphasises the importance of intersectional analyses – that is, the consideration of various characteristics – when looking at the relationship between cultural participation and social background.  

The 2019 AuSSA only provided two options for participants’ gender identity, male and female, which limits the scope of this analysis. Later AuSSA surveys have added additional options for answering this question.   

Factsheet 3: Reading for Pleasure 

This factsheet explores how reading for pleasure relates to positive social attitudes and upward social mobility among Australians. It also investigates the ways in which gender intersects with age, social class, and education to influence the likelihood of reading for pleasure, and how.  

Overall, findings provide further evidence for the connections between reading for pleasure and positive social effects. In addition to the well-established individual benefits, promoting reading for pleasure may help build more trusting and inclusive communities.