Future of Creative Industries - Implications for Research ... - Europa

freelancers. Moreover, among them there are categories that earn no salary at all –writers, painters, sculptures – who could be regarded as ‘small business people’.Multiple job-holding is a very common formula as the cultural workers need aminimum income for survival and some degree of financial security.• There are extreme differences in income distributions. On the one side we have thegreat majority getting very low rewards, significantly below other groups of workforcewith similar human capital attributes. On the other side there are a relatively smallnumber of stars with very high income.• The level of risk attached to expected rewards is higher than in other professions.Among the factors leading to financial success, the analyses show that ‘learning-onthe-job’plays a more significant role than the formal training and to the role of talentis attached elusive appreciations.• A relevant issue for the differences between the arts realm and other industries is theone of “art-for-art’s-sake, the inner drive of the creative spirit, art-as-a-way-of-life”which offers to the artists non-pecuniary rewards.Despite the low level of wages for the large majority of cultural sector, there is generally anoversupply of labour. For some, there is the temptation of becoming famous. For most, thenon-monetary reward of being an artist represents an important argument. Some part of theexcess can be attributed as well as to the actions of arts organizations attempting to keep “aslarge a pool of talent available as possible”, Throsby’s words.9