Profile of creative women: a comprehensive quantitative approach for Spain

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this study we address the main aspects shaping the profile of creative women in Spain. The creativity concept is based on Richard Florida's approach that takes into account the type of occupation in which women develop their work activities. From this occupational-based approach we define a list of creative jobs and characterize the types of these jobs in which creative women mainly carry out their activities. We have been able to observe over time that economic crisis has not significantly affected the group of creative women. Moreover, from a geographical dimension, empirical results show strong evidence for Florida's hypotheses on the relationships between presence of female creative class and variables such as tolerance, urbanity, amenities or innovation in Spanish regions. Our findings also suggest that most creative cities have greater income inequality. We finally estimate a logistic model by using microdata from the Labour Force Survey, which allows us to characterize the profile of creative women according to a series of socio-demographic and labour variables. We concluded that highly educated and Spanish women who are self-employer or working in services, as well as overtime, are more likely to have a creative occupation than the rest of female workforce.