Women in arts leadership positions
Women are neither fully represented nor equally paid in arts leadership positions, according to my analysis of 2021 census data
This is my first post with statistics on artists and arts workers from the 2021 census. It is also my final post of 2022.
Today, I focus on “arts leadership positions”, which is a category that I conceived of in November, based on a close examination of occupational classifications.
My analysis of arts leaders is quite broad-based, including five occupation groups that account for over 56,000 workers in Canada:
Producers, directors, choreographers, and related occupations (36,200 workers)
Managers in publishing, motion pictures, broadcasting, and the performing arts (8,800 workers)
Library, archive, museum, and art gallery managers (5,100 workers)
Conductors, composers, and arrangers (3,900 workers)
Conservators and curators (2,200 workers)
I think that this new category should provide an interesting glimpse of senior-level workers in the arts sector, which will complement my analysis of artists. Note that two of the above occupations (producers etc. and conductors etc.) will also be included in my analyses of artists in the new year.
This post analyzes the number and proportion of women arts leaders, as well as their typical employment income (overall and for those with a bachelor’s degree).
Readers might also be interested in an excellent recent analysis of diversity in arts leadership, using a very different definition of arts leadership: senior executives in 125 of the largest arts organizations in Canada. That analysis found that women represent 48% of CEOs or Executive Directors, 35% of Artistic Directors, and 38% of Board Chairs or Presidents within the very large organizations.
The first release of census occupational data (on November 30th) was limited in scope, and my analysis for the next while will be confined to what Statistics Canada did release, including information on women in the arts but excluding, for example, Indigenous or racialized artists and arts workers (data that have not yet been released). Posts on these topics will be produced and shared when the data elements become available.
In the new year, look for many posts on artists, based on the 2021 census.
I should clarify what is meant by “women” in this post. This equates to the “women+” grouping that Statistics Canada developed for the 2021 census. The statistics on “women+” include cisgender women, transgender women, as well as some non-binary individuals (likely those who were assigned female sex at birth, but that’s not 100% clear from Statistics Canada’s description). You’ll see graphs in this post that are labelled “women+” and “men+”.