Balancing Act Survey 2018
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Headlines
PiPA’s survey into the impact of caring responsibilities on career progression in Dance, Music, Theatre and Opera.
Published: 17th April 2019
PiPA and the Department of Organizational Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, set out to investigate the link between caring responsibilities and career progression in the performing arts to inform necessary steps for a collective approach to increasing business resilience by supporting the carer and parent workforce in the industry.
This Balancing Act Survey provides evidence that a shift is needed to enable parents and carers to continue fulfilling careers as part of an engaged sector which makes a substantial contribution to the UK economy. Supportive working practices and effective policy changes, which should also focus on freelancers, can help to ensure that the performing arts sector is reflective of UK society.
Just over 2,500 UK workers from the performing arts (including over 1,000 parents and carers), across music, theatre and dance (including on- and off-stage workers) gave up their time to provide valuable data and a unique insight into the industries in the Balancing Act Survey. This in-depth approach gathered robust quantitative and qualitative data benchmarked against available national data on earnings, work-life balance and other indices where available.
Key Findings
£3000 pay gap
The median earnings for parents and carers are £20,000 per annum, 13% lower than for those without caring responsibilities (£23,000).
Earnings not covering expenses
Earnings from the performing arts are unlikely to cover expected outgoings for over a third of participants and nearly twice as many said that earnings do not cover unexpected expenses.
Full time / part time
Parents and carers are less likely to be in full-time employment (29% compared to 45% for those without caring responsibilities)
Seeking work outside the arts
Parents and carers seek proportionally more work outside the performing arts to boost their income. This in effect subsidises their careers more so than those without caring responsibilities.
Changing roles and location
37% of participants with caring responsibilities had changed their work role and 45% changed their work location because of caring-related issues.
Turning down work
76% of parents and carers had to turn down work because of childcare responsibilities (even higher for women at 80%)
Recommendations
- Lobby for better data on performing arts and self-employment
- Mandate equal opportunities statistics publication
- Promote equal parental support for all workers
- Improve business resilience through supportive practices
- Investigate vulnerable groups (e.g. single parents, socially excluded)
- Study health impacts of juggling jobs and caring roles