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Don't Give Up Your Day Job
An economic study of professional artists in Australia
By David Throsby and Virginia Hollister
1 June 2003
Abstract
Don't Give Up Your Day Job, written by David Throsby and Virginia Hollister, is the fourth in a series carried out over the past 20 years at Macquarie University, with funding from the Australia Council. The surveys provide information about the economic circumstances of professional artistic practice across all major artforms, apart from film. This survey, undertaken in 2002 and covering the 2000-01 financial year, updates and expands the information collected in the earlier studies.
Table of contents
- List of tables and figures
- Preface
- Explanatory notes
- Introduction
- Defining the artist population
- Basic demographics
- The diversity of artistic practice
- Education and training
- Career development
- Employment and time allocation
- Income and expenditure
- Professional practice issues
- Gender issues
- Regional artists
- Artists from a non-English speaking background
- Artists with disabilities
- Conclusion
- References
- Appendix I: Statistical tables
- Appendix II: Survey methodology
- Appendix III: Survey instruments
- Index
About the authors
David Throsby holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from the University of Sydney, and a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics. He has been Professor of Economics at Macquarie University in Sydney since 1974. He has been a consultant to the World Bank, the OECD, FAO and UNESCO, as well as many government organisations and private firms. In 1990-1992 he chaired three of the Prime Minister's Working Groups on Ecologically Sustainable Development. In 2008 Professor Throsby was selected to take part in the Prime Minister's Australia 2020 Summit as a participant on the Towards a Creative Australia panel.
