Overview

Culture and the Gender Pay Gap for Australian Artists reports on research conducted by David Throsby, Katya Petetskaya and Sunny Y. Shin at the Department of Economics, Macquarie University, in partnership with the Australia Council.  

The research builds on The Gender Pay Gap for Australian Artists: Some preliminary findings, published by Macquarie University and the Australia Council in November 2020, which highlighted the particularity of the social, cultural and economic conditions likely to affect the gender gap. 

Culture and the Gender Pay Gap for Australian Artists considers the impact of cultural background on the relative incomes of male and female artists, and the different income relationships for First Nations artists living in different cultural communities around Australia.   

The Australia Council has summarised findings of this latest research in Culture and the Gender Pay Gap for Australian Artists: A summary by the Australia Council. 

The results from Culture and the Gender Pay Gap for Australian highlight the income disparity between female artists with a first language other than English and women artists from an English-speaking background.  

• Women with a first language other than English appear to experience a triple income penalty – from being artists, being from non-English speaking backgrounds, and being female. 
• Female artists with a first language other than English experience a greater income disadvantage than women artists from an English-speaking background.  
• Having a first language other than English carries an income penalty only for women artists, not men artists. 
• While First Nations artists in remote communities earn less than other artists overall, the gender pay gap does not appear to be evident in those communities.