Art and design, in the UK, is an area dominated by female students and yet, as graduates, they consistently earn less than males. Research, drawing on information provided by nearly 2000 art and design graduates, reveals that there are significant variations in income between different subject areas within art and design. However, taking into account other variables that impact on income – subject area, year of graduation and age – males earn significantly higher salaries than females. This is an indefensible situation in which more value appears to be attributed to male work than female work.
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References
1.
HarveyL.BlackwellA., Destinations and Reflections: Careers of British Art and Design Graduates: Executive Summary, Centre for Research into Quality, Birmingham, 1999.
2.
A comparison with HESA first-destinations statistics suggests that 17% of all art and design graduates are fine artists and 65% are design students of various types. For those institutions participating in the study, the proportions in these two categories are slightly higher (19% and 69% respectively).
3.
There was no significant difference in the distribution of degree classifications in the different subject areas. There were marginally more first-class degrees in photography, film and video than other areas and interior design was the only area with significantly more lower-second-class degrees than upper-seconds. There is remarkable consistency in the distribution of degree classifications for each year of graduation.
4.
Income data were collected by asking to which £5,000 income band respondents belonged. Hence mean income for different groups can be estimated only by assuming an even distribution of respondents within each income band.
5.
PurcellJ.K.PitcherJ.SimmC., Working Out? Graduates' Early Experiences of the Labour Market, CSU, Manchester, 1999, p 43.
6.
Ibid, p 44.
7.
Analysing the data controlling for age as well as year of graduation and main subject area confirms the gender differences.
