Culture Is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries

Dave O'Brien presents a new publication reporting on the first large-scale study of social mobility and inequality in culture and the arts.

This talk introduces themes from the book, Culture Is Bad for You. The book analyses the connection between culture and social inequality, presenting the first large-scale study of social mobility into cultural and creative jobs, hundreds of interviews with cultural worker, and new analysis of secondary datasets to show how who works, and who engages, in culture is deeply unequal. Alongside these themes, this talk addresses the intersection between class, race and gender underpinning exclusions from the workforce and the audience, demonstrating how women, people of colour, and those from working class origins are systematically excluded.

Dave O’Brien is Chancellor’s Fellow in Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Edinburgh. He has published extensively on sociology of culture and cultural policy, and is currently part of a large scale AHRC project assessing the impact of COVID-19 on the cultural sector in the UK.