Artistic labour markets are notoriously precarious. In this paper, we examine how cognitive skills and personality traits shape labour market outcomes among individuals with arts education and those working in arts-related occupations. Using harmonised microdata from the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), we document disadvantages in unemployment risk, earnings, and employment stability for arts graduates and arts workers. We show that skills and personality traits mediate these outcomes in distinct ways. Cognitive skills reduce labour market risk and facilitate employment outside the arts, while openness to experience predicts sorting into artistic occupations and contributes to earnings differentiation within the sector. Differences in skill match explain only a limited share of these penalties, pointing instead to systematically weaker returns in artistic labour markets. Despite poorer objective outcomes, individuals who both studied and work in the arts report substantially higher job satisfaction, consistent with the importance of non-pecuniary rewards and identity motivations in labour supply. We also find that job-related training particularly in interpersonal and communication skills mitigates employment instability and earnings penalties.
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Pilar Beneito and Maria Garcia-Vega
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