Income varied greatly between different artistic professions in Sweden in 2019 and 2021. This is shown in a new pilot study produced by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and the Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis.

The Swedish Arts Grants Committee and the Swedish Agency for Cultural Policy Analysis have produced a pilot study on the income of people whose activities are based on or consist of artistic creation and competence. In the pilot study, this group is called artistic professionals.

The group of artistic professionals includes the artists who are the target group for the state's artistic policy initiatives. But the group also includes designers in industry and graphic designers in the advertising industry – professions that are not covered by cultural policy to the same extent.

The group of artistic professionals is a section of the actors that exist within the cultural and creative industries (KKB) and constitutes the so-called creative core. The size of the group was 55,642 people in 2021, which corresponds to about a quarter of all professionals in KKB.

Some results from the pilot study

Income varied greatly between the different artistic professions. Occupations where the majority were combiners or purely self-employed generally had lower incomes than occupations that had more pure income from employment.

Income from business activity was significantly higher for those working in the arts compared to other gainfully employed persons. This shows that artistic professionals to a greater extent run businesses and that business income constitutes a significant part of the total income.

Compensation for the working arts was higher for men than for women. The income gap also increased slightly between 2019 and 2021. However, the difference was somewhat smaller in the artistic profession than for other gainfully employed persons.

The income of persons with foreign background was slightly higher than that of the corresponding group of other gainfully employed persons. One explanation for the higher incomes may be that there is qualified labour immigration in the creative industries.

Despite 2021 being a pandemic year, artistic professionals had higher incomes than in 2019. This may be due to the fact that young and inexperienced people with low salaries left the cultural labour market for other work during the pandemic. Another reason may be that certain artistic professions were not affected or shut down during the pandemic. A third explanation is probably due to the support and efforts that the state put in during the pandemic, where there was both direct support aimed at the cultural area and various business supports.

https://www.konstnarsnamnden.se/nyheter/pilotstudie-om-inkomster-for-konstnarligt-yrkesverksamma/