Assessing the Role of Sexual Orientation in the U.S. Labor Market for Artists and Arts Majors

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Using American Community Survey data, we describe the labor market experiences of sexual minority artists and arts majors and explore the differences in their earnings and employment. We identify workers in cohabiting relationships as being either in same-sex or opposite-sex relationships. We find that artists are more than twice as likely to be in same-sex relationships when compared to the overall workforce, largely driven by higher shares of males in same-sex relationships. A similar pattern is observed for arts majors when compared to all college graduates. We find significant heterogeneity in the share of workers in same-sex relationships across individual artist occupations and individual arts majors. In testing for differences in earnings and employment, we use regression analysis, finding an increased likelihood of unemployment for male and female artists in same-sex relationships, earnings penalties for males in same-sex relationships, and earnings premiums for females in same-sex relationships. However, like other studies using coupled data, we hesitate in using causal language in interpreting the earnings regression results due to data limitations.