Artists are poor and thus unhappy

Abstract

A popular view in economics, supported by numerous claims, is that artists are poor and unsuccessful and, thus, must be unhappy. Artists such as Franz Kafka, Emily Dickinson, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, or Franz Schubert, all of whom were unsuccessful artists during their lifetime and, in some cases, mentally ill, have received considerable attention in the public, art history, and philosophy. The persistent popularity around the link between creativity and mental illness may just be notionally rooted in society’s need to regard both genius and mental illness as “deviant." However, the artistic labor market is indeed marked by several adversities, such as low wages, above-average unemployment, and constrained underemployment. Artists earn less, on average, than they would with the same qualifications in other professions, and their earnings display greater inequality than those of their reference group. They suffer from above-average unemployment and constrained underemployment, such as non-voluntary part-time or intermittent work. Nevertheless, the field of the Arts attracts many young people. The number of students by far exceeds the available jobs.