Gender Pay Gap in the Early-Stage Careers of Canadian Creative Workers

Marilena Vecco, Miranda Campbell, Roberto Zanola

Dr. Marilena Vecco is Full Professor in Entrepreneurship at Burgundy Business School, Dijon (France) and Associated to the Carmelle and Rémi Marcoux Chair in Arts Management HEC Montréal (Canada). Her research focuses on cultural entrepreneurship and management with a special focus on cultural heritage (tangible and intangible) and art markets.
Dr. Miranda Campbell is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Industries. Her research focuses on creative employment, youth culture, and small-scale and emerging forms of creative practice. She published several books and articles on these topics.
Dr. Roberto Zanola is full professor in Public Economics at the University of Eastern Piedmont. He was president of the International Association for Cultural Economics. He published contributions on cultural economics in many international economic journals.

ABSTRACT
Despite the existence of a number of studies analysing the gender pay gap in the job market as a whole, less is known about this issue in cultural and creative markets, in which the employment conditions lack stability, and many of the jobs are “hidden” because of part-time, unpaid, and/or portfolio work conditions. These characteristics are expected to be exacerbated in the early stages of careers so that, in this case, the gender pay gap might display specific singularities. This paper specifically investigates this issue by analysing data from the “Young People Making a Living in the Creative Industries” research project, a survey conducted from April to September 2016 in Canada. The results confirm the existence of a gender pay gap, but in a totally unexpected way.
KEYWORDS
Early-Stage Career; Labour Markets; Canada; Gender Pay Gap; Creative Workers