Defining the Cultural Economy:

Industry and Occupational Approaches

Ann Markusen
Professor and Director
Project on Regional and Industrial Economics
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
301 S. 19th Avenue, Rm 231
Minneapolis, MN 55455
[email protected]
http://www.hhh.umn.edu/projects/prie

Gregory H. Wassall
Professor and Graduate Coordinator
Department of Economics
Northeastern University
Boston, MA 02115
[email protected]

Doug DeNatale
President
Cultural Logic, Inc.
166 Hawthorne Street
Malden, MA 02148
[email protected]
http://www.clinc.us

Randy Cohen
Vice-President, Research & Information
Americans for the Arts
1000 Vermont Avenue, NW, 6th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20005
[email protected]
http://www.AmericansForTheArts.org

November, 2006

Presented at the North American Regional Science Council Meetings, Toronto,

November 17. Our thanks to Bill Beyers, Susan Christopherson, Norma Rantisi, Glen
Norcliffe, and Stephen Sheppard for comments on an earlier draft. Please email us for
updates before citing.
 Because of growing interest in creative cities and cultural industries, scholars of

economic development enjoy a new frontier for timely research with planning and policy

implications. However, diverse literatures often use the terms creative and cultural

without clearing defining them and without transparency in the use of data and statistics

to measure and compare them. Cities rush to commission cultural plans and mandate

cultural districts, states fund "cool cities" programs, and real estate interests dub certain

areas of cities creative without the benefit of careful reasoning and empirical analysis.

In this paper, we argue that there are a number of nested definitions of the

regional cultural economy that researchers and policymakers can use with relative

precision and for useful policy work. We explore the conceptual underpinnings of the

terms "creative" and "cultural," both fuzzy concepts. The term "creative" is popular but

problematic, and in the rest of our paper, we use the more focused term, "cultural."

We analyze two sets of metrics for assessing the regional cultural economy:

employment in cultural industries and employment in cultural occupations. Each of these

are approached with nested definitional sets. In policy and planning practice, the choice

of appropriate scale is often linked to the particular problem faced or agenda set by

advocacy and policy constituencies.

We explore three different approaches to operationalizing the cultural economy

with these metrics, based on the authors' respective research and policy work with the

New England Creative Economy project, the Americans for the Arts and the University

of Minnesota's Project on Regional and Industrial Economics. We explain the original

vision and intent of each body of work, how each defines and measures the presence of

cultural industries, and the uses to which the work has been applied. Since each project
uses different data sets to explore the cultural economy, we note in passing the strengths

and weaknesses of each of these data sources.

We then compare interpretations of the size and character of the creative economy

using the two employment metrics – industry and occupation – and nested definitions for

each for the Boston metro area and the US. For the occupational comparison, we include,

in addition to our metrics, the definitions for Florida's (2002) creative class work and the

National Endowment for the Arts' artistic employment work. The estimates of

creative/cultural employment vary dramatically across the metrics used. The cultural

industries measures produce higher employment estimates, because they include all

workers, whether producing cultural content directly or indirectly, than do cultural

occupation measures. This approach helps policymakers to see how important a set of

cultural producers are to the regional economy overall. Cultural occupational analysis

focuses more closely on what cultural workers do rather than what they make and is

useful for thinking through the workforce development aspects of the cultural economy

and how they are linked to entrepreneurship and new firm formation.

We also undertake an analysis of artistic occupations by industry, which reveals

remarkable differentials distribution of artists among industries for three major metro

regions: Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, and how these diverge from the national

profile. This analysis also suggests that if artistic occupations were used to identify

cultural industries, as in the high tech sector, the composition of the cultural industry set

would include some sectors, such as religious institutions and scientific services,

generally omitted in existing accounts.

2
 In closing, we reflect on the need for consensus among researchers and users on

definitions of the cultural economy. Given the different agendas of research users – arts

advocates, local and state economic developers, cultural training institutions, city

planners, a set of nested definitions of cultural industries and occupations is the best we

can do at present. Even these need further debate and refinement, as noted in our

conceptual discussion. For instance, should religious, sports and gambling enterprises be

included? Furthermore, researchers must balance conceptual clarity with pragmatic

limits imposed by existing data sets. For instance, at present, it is impossible to break out

arts administrators and arts teachers from umbrella occupational categories. We believe

that ongoing conceptual discussion, efforts to hone categories and data points used to

operationalize the cultural economy, and discussion of constituency stakes will contribute

to greater rigor in creative economy research and efficacy of policy approaches.

I. Cultural Economy Conceptualization

In recent years, two distinctive new research trajectories have converged on the

regional cultural economy- one focused on places and the other on industries. Two early

American place-focused efforts, regional scientist Harvey Perloff's team study of Los

Angeles—The Arts in the Economic Life of a City (1979a, 1979b) and the New York-

New Jersey Port Authority's The Arts as an Industry: Their Economic Importance to the

New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Region (1983)--first worked the cultural/urban

interface. In Europe, scholars, planners and politicians began to espouse the development

of cultural spaces and activities as a way to revitalize de-industrializing central cities,

writing about a vision and practice for "the creative city" (Bianchini et al, 1988; Landry

3
et al, 1996; Landry, 2003). American initiatives for the creative cities and regions

followed (e.g. Mt Auburn Associates, 2000, 2005; Center for an Urban Future, 2005).

Second, beginning in the 1990s, British and American sociologists, geographers

and economists began to explore the cultural industries, a set of sectors that cut across

manufacturing and service industries, as a unique and growing phenomenon in regional

and national economies (Pratt, 1997; O'Brien and Feist, 1997; Chartrand, 2000; Vogel,

2001; Hesmondhalgh, 2002; Power, 2002; Power and Scott, 2004). These two streams

were brought together in novel ways by Florida (2002) and Scott (1997, 2003) in their

work on "the creative class" and "the cultural economies of cities" respectively. In yet

another stream of work, some researchers proposed that the cultural economy be gauged

by occupation as well as industry (Markusen and King, 2003; Markusen and Schrock,

2006a). In both academic and policy worlds, this work expanded the range of beyond the

arts per se and the nonprofit arts in particular (e.g. Heilbrun and Gray, 1993; Gray and

Heilbrun, 2000).

From the outset, concepts and measures of what constitutes a creative economy,

creative city, creative class, cultural industry and cultural workforce have been hotly

contested. Several critiques of the Florida account of the creative class and its spatial

distribution have been written (Lang and Danielsen, 2005; Peck, 2005; Markusen, 2006b;

Scott, 2006; Stern and Seifert, 2007). The concept of cultural industry has come in for

similar scrutiny. One researcher reflecting on the state of the art writes "In general, it has

been very difficult to reach consensus about what the proper boundaries of the creative

industries ought to be, and many remain skeptical about whether exiting industrial

classifications provide enough information to correctly identify creative enterprises"

4
(Tepper, 2002: 163). Another notes: "In the main, the statistical disputes around cultural

sector employment figures have been the least illuminating, often the most absurd, and

certainly the most tedious aspect of the debate around culture and the economy"

(O'Connor, 2002). It is this challenge that we take up in this paper. In this section, we

tackle the conceptualization of the cultural economy, followed by accounts of three

pioneering recent experiments at operationalizing alternative definitions with different

data sources.

A. Fuzzy Definitions of the Cultural Economy

In general, user exasperation with writing on the creative city and the cultural

sector often stems from the sense that multiple meanings underpin the use of these rubrics

in different contexts and empirical accounts. Users don’t really "know it when they see

it," a function of both elasticity in writers' conceptualizations and lack of transparency in

data used to document it (Markusen, 2003). Often, researchers using these categories

aren't clear what each encompasses or candid about data limitations. Even worse, they are

often not very imaginative or knowledgeable about the terms and data they use. A simple

example is Florida's definition of the creative class, which includes large lumpy

occupational categories defined, by the government agencies that create them, largely on

the basis of educational attainment and credentials. So, in Florida’s usage, the creative

class boils down to those who have received higher education whether or not they are

actually doing creative work and excludes all creative workers without degrees

(Markusen, 2006b; Stern and Seifert, 2007). Because this definition is both crude and

politically repugnant, we do not use the term "creative class" in our work.

5
 In this paper, we explore the two dimensions of the creative economy most often

used to gauge employment at the regional level: cultural industries and cultural

occupations. Cultural industries consist of those establishments—for-profit, nonprofit and

public—that produce cultural goods and services. The best conceptual definition of

cultural industries is offered by sociologist Hesmondhalgh (2002: 11-13), who defines

culture (following Williams, 1991:11) as "the signifying system" through which a social

order is communicated, reproduced, experienced and explored." Cultural industries, then,

are directly involved in the production of social meaning in the form of texts and

symbols. In his view, cultural industries "include television, radio, the cinema,

newspapers, magazine and book publishing, music recording and publishing industries,

advertising and the performing arts. These are all activities the primary aim of which is

to communicate to an audience, to create texts (p. 12)." Hesmondhalgh treats other

activity as "peripheral" because it does not use industrial methods, including theater and

the making and selling of art works such as paintings and sculpture. His discussion

includes an interesting account of why cars, software, consumer electronics/cultural

industry hardware and sports are borderline cases. Less debate has taken place over what

should constitute cultural occupations, but various scholars use more or less expansive

definitions, as we recount in Section IV below. For the most part, we do not conflate the

"creative economy" with the cultural economy in our work, since others using this term,

including Florida, include science, engineering, computing and education sectors in the

former, which we do not.

B. Criteria for Inclusion in the Cultural Economy

6
 The definitions used for industries and occupations are shaped by three competing

realities. First, researchers strive for a defensible conceptual definition of the cultural

that is clearly distinguishable from other domains in the economy. Second, each research

effort has particular constituencies and policy arenas in mind. This commitment to policy

relevance often shapes the definitions chosen. Third, available data sources, while

multiple and of relatively high quality, are often frustratingly aggregated by industry, by

occupation, by region in ways clash with conceptual approaches and policy needs.

In our projects, we have separately struggled to balance the demands of these

three forces. In the portrait of each body of work below, we explain the origins of the

research and how each project was conceived with particular concepts, data sources,

constituents and policy arenas in mind. Our conclusion is that a set of nested definitions

for both cultural industries and cultural occupations is possible. Below, two of the

projects reviewed offer core and peripheral or expanded definitions of the cultural

economy, operationalized with different data sets.

The boundaries of the cultural economy continue to be fuzzy and are currently the

subject of lively debate. To the group that Hesmondhalgh, Pratt, Powers, Scott and others

normally include in their definitions, the following have been suggested.

1. Religion

Religious establishments are clearly makers and disseminators of texts and

symbols. They provide spaces and experiences where people engage in cultural

expression and exchange, they produce and perform cultural events, and they share the

nonprofit organizational form with many of the performing arts. No researcher except

7
Chartrand (2000) includes the religious sector in the definition of cultural industries, and

no occupational accounting includes pastors/ministers/rabbis/imams as cultural workers.

Yet one third of all musicians in the US work for religious organizations (Markusen and

Schrock, 2006a). Americans for the Arts is conducting a project, Partnerships for Sacred

Places, to explore the intersections between religious and culture, and The American

Composers' Forum's pioneering Faith Partners program in the 1990s paired up composers

with churches and synagogues as places open to new music (Markusen and Johnson,

2006: 33). Religion as a cultural sector raises many uncomfortable questions for

researchers and arts advocates.

2. Sport, recreation and entertainment

Most cultural industry work operates from a supply side perspective, but for

consumers, cultural activities like theater, film, reading and museum-going compete with

sports, gambling, circuses and other recreational options as uses of their discretionary

income and leisure time. Some authors (Beyers, 2006, Vogel, 2001 for the entertainment

sectors) include sports and recreation in their definition of cultural industries. Sports,

entertainment and the arts bear some similarities, both requiring often-subsidized

facilities such as stadiums, casinos and performing arts complexes (Seaman, 2003),

though they differ in occupational character and multiplier effects (Markusen and

Schrock, 2006a). Hesmondhalgh (2002: 13) argues that sport is competitive while

symbol making isn't (debatable), and that cultural texts tend to be more scripted or scored

than sport, which is improvised around a set of competitive rules. The fact that recently

reformulated NAICS codes lump arts, entertainment and sports together makes it more

8
difficult for researchers to distinguish arts from other elements and reveals that arts and

cultural advocates were not represented at the table when the federal government was

refashioning its codes in the 1990s.

3. Education: general and arts

Although educators produce and work with texts and symbols, the educational

sector is not generally included in the definition of the cultural economy. The New

England and Americans for the Arts projects, described below, include independent fine

arts schools but not arts and design activities in colleges and universities, because it is

impossible to break out the arts faculty and establishments from science, engineering,

medicine, law and business. A strong case can be made for including arts educators as

cultural workers—National Endowment for the Arts tallies included them in the past

when earlier coding schemes broke them out.

4. Information

Software publishing provides another challenging case. There are similarities in

production processes between software and other cultural industries, but Hesmondhalgh

(2002: 14) argues that the actual presentation of the product does not take the form of a

text, and its uses—chiefly to carry out certain computerized tasks—outweigh aesthetic

dimensions. The New England project includes software in its consideration of

peripheral cultural industries. High tech advocates were successful in the recent NAICS

recoding in securing an "information industry" grouping, although many experts remain

skeptical of the coherence of the notion. Nevertheless, the claim that there exists an

9
information industry competes, as does the notion of an entertainment industry, with the

effort to distinguish a separate cultural industry.

5. Supplier sectors and distributors

When mapping the whole of the impact of a sector on the regional economy,

some researchers incorporate the whole supply chain in the industry definition. This

helps policymakers see connections between supplier (or upstream) sectors and

distributors (or downstream), all of whose employment may be attributable to the

industry's presence. A pioneering study of the music industry in Seattle, for instance,

includes the makers of instruments and recording equipment as well as the retail outlets

where CDs are sold and clubs and orchestra halls where live music is played (Beyers, et

al, 2004). The New England project has incorporated many supplier sectors into its core

cultural industry definition, including photographic film, printing machinery, and musical

instrument manufacturing. It also includes distributing activities from retail outlets that

sell music, jewelry, and bookstores to those that sell equipment for consuming cultural

content, such as radios, TV, stereo systems, and Ipods.

Even within the commonly included cultural industries, there are sectors that raise

eyebrows. Advertising, for instance, could be considered mainly informational and

merely a supply industry to manufacturing and service industry clients, rather than

primarily producer of texts. Fashion (i.e. clothing) is not included by anyone in the

cultural industries, even though fashion designers are often included as cultural workers.

Hesmondhalgh (2002: 14) argues that clothing is more about functionality than

signifying, but this is debatable. The printing industry produces large numbers of

10
relatively routine and purely informational publications such as directories, catalogues,

manuals for businesses and consumers and textbooks for students. One source of

confusion, we believe, is that most researchers rely on conceptual definitions driven by

the supply side – by the leaders of arts and cultural industries and their conception of the

cultural – versus the demand side, where consumption patterns (and an enlarged domain

with religion, sports, recreation and entertainment) more closely fit the sociological

notions of text and symbol, and signifying versus functionality.

We do not, in what follows, incorporate these border arenas into our definitions of

the cultural economy. Yet including any one of them would change the size and

character of the sector and alter the constituency for cultural policy. By just how much is

an empirical question. Next, we explore how our three different projects have delineated

the cultural economy and how employment estimates differ as a result. We chose Boston

as a case study metro because it is among the US metros with a relatively high location

quotient for cultural activity, regardless of which metric is used, but it is not one of the

super-cultural metros: Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco (Markusen and Schrock

(2006a). It is representative of modestly culturally rich mid-sized metros such as Seattle,

Minneapolis-St. Paul, Washington, DC that have cultural employment densities between

15 and 50% above national averages.

II. The Creative Economy Initiative: New England Foundation for the Arts

Well before Florida's coining of the creative class rubric, a group of organizations

and researchers in New England initiated a Creative Economy initiative in 1998 to study

and advocate for the region's cultural economy. Building on a rich history of nonprofit

11
arts research in New England (DeNatale and Wassall, 2006: 5-11), their goal was to

demonstrate that creative enterprises and individuals provide a significant contribution to

local and regional economies, fueling other sectors of the economy in unique ways.1 The

resulting Mt. Auburn Associates report, The Creative Economy in New England (2000),

identified three components:

The Creative Cluster, defined as those enterprises and individuals that directly and
indirectly produce cultural products (commercial and nonprofit industries)

The Creative Workforce, defined as the thinkers and doers trained in specific
cultural and artistic skills who drive the success of leading industries that include,
but are not limited to, arts and culture (occupations in commercial and nonprofit
sectors)

The Creative Community, defined as a geographic area with a concentration of

creative workers, creative businesses, and cultural organizations s

A creative cluster enterprise must produce cultural products as its main function and can

include individuals who are operating as sole proprietors, such as self-employed artists

who are running their own artistic businesses.

During the past two years, the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), in

consultation with DeNatale and Wassall and with the input of regional and national

researchers, spearheaded an effort to re-examine and refine the operational definitions in

the 2000 Creative Economy study. The goal was to put forward a defensible and realistic

1
The Boston Symphony Orchestra, one of the largest nonprofit cultural organizations in
the region, brought a study of the economic impact of the region’s cultural non-profits
(Wassall and DeNatale, 1997) to the attention of the New England Council, a regional
business advocacy organization. At a 1998 regional conference sponsored by the New
England Council, leaders agreed to extend the scope of that research into the for-profit
portion of the cultural sector and commissioned Mt. Auburn Associates, an economic
development consulting firm to write the study, funded by the New England Federal of
the Arts. Mt. Auburn reported on the size of the creative cluster and creative workforce,
using employment as a metric and data drawn from the 1997 Census of Manufactures and
the 1996 Current Population Survey.

12
definition of that portion of the creative economic sector that produces cultural products

and services and a set of methodological principles that can be applied consistently in

New England and elsewhere to identify both cultural industries and the cultural

workforce.

The new NEFA definitions are more expansive than those in the Mt. Auburn

report, identifying each category within the respective industry and occupation

classification systems involving the production of cultural goods and services and further

distinguishing those categories that can be reasonably expected to capture only the

production of cultural goods and services. Thus for both the industry clusters and the

occupation groupings, “core” and a “periphery” were defined--those industries or

occupations that directly make, produce, or market a cultural product are placed within

the core. Other industries or occupations both within and outside the cultural domain

(e.g., the woodworking occupation or the software industry) are considered peripheral

and would not normally be counted as part of the cultural industries or workforce.2 The

core component consists of 93 six-digit NAICS industries (Table A1) and the periphery

encompasses an additional 24 (available on request).

The NEFA project uses the 2002 Economic Census, which asks employers to

identify employment by disaggregated industry sector and occupation and thus does not

2
Since the nature of cultural activities varies across regions, a case can be made for
counting the cultural portion of a peripheral industry or occupation in a particular region,
provided that a defensible methodology can establish the local percentage of cultural
industries or workers and that this number can be separated from that reported for the
core industries and workforce. One example is the recent report by Mt. Auburn that
includes restaurants as producing a cultural product in New Orleans (Mt. Auburn
Associates, 2005).

13
include the self-employed or pubic sector employers.3 With this data, the new NEFA

definitions estimate cultural industry employment in the Boston metro at almost 101,787

for 2002, just over 4% of total employment (Table 1). The shares are somewhat lower

for Massachusetts and all new England, but all are higher than for the nation. Densities,

as gauged with location quotients, are all above one, with the Boston the higher.

Similarly, the NEFA project allocates occupations that constitute the cultural

workforce into a core and periphery. The core is defined as occupations where all

members are likely to be producing, or assisting in the production of, a cultural product

or service. The peripheral occupations focus more on artisanal work. The New England

core definition encompasses 31 Census occupational categories (Table A2), while

another 18 are considered peripheral (available on request). The core cultural workforce

(including the unemployed) is estimated to be 72,434 for the Boston metro in 2002,

almost 4% of the workforce compared with 2.7% nationwide. Below, we compare these

with the estimates of cultural economy employment from several other research efforts.

III. Defining Cultural Industries with Firm Data: Americans for the Arts

The 1990s were a difficult period for artists and arts advocates. Vociferous

conservative attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts, following the Robert

Mapplethorpe and Karen Finley controversies, cut deeply into National Endowment for

the Arts funding, cuts mirrored in state arts budgets (Kreidler, 1996; Ivey, 2005).

3
The Economic Census is to County Business Patterns used in Beyers (2006) as the
Decennial Census of Population is to the Current Population Survey - greater accuracy
and detail, but less timely. Among things of interest to us, but not necessarily in this
paper, is the availability of a for-profit vs. non-profit breakdown, plus data on payroll and
value added, found only in the Economic Census. The Economic Census, like County
Business Patterns, does not survey public employers.

14
Americans for the Arts (AFTA), the national umbrella arts advocacy organization, found

that one way to fight the waning public support for arts and culture is to help public and

private sector leaders—those who affect policy, funding, and shape opinions—

understand the economic benefits gained by communities with a vibrant arts presence.

AFTA initiated its Creative Industries research project that quantifies and maps arts-

centric businesses and employment at the local, state, and national levels and provides it

to arts and community leaders. The project is thus constituency and policy-driven.

In defining cultural industries, AFTA includes both for-profit and nonprofit

businesses involved in the creation or distribution of the arts. It identifies businesses, not

just establishments, in their approach, and includes industries that produce cultural

products (movies, TV and radio shows, novels, musical recordings, paintings and prints),

provide space and aesthetic character for consumption (architecture, design,); and enrich

community livability through direct, live cultural experience (museums, public art,

performing arts, arts education). It excludes industries such as software programming

and scientific research—both creative, but not focused on arts and culture. Six broad

categories comprise AFTA's creative industries: museums and collections: performing

arts; visual arts and photography; film, radio, and TV; design and publishing, including

advertising; and arts schools and services.

To track cultural businesses, Americans for the Arts use data from Dun &

Bradstreet (D&B) that tracks the type and number of arts-centric businesses and their

employees.4 Employment data are collected and identified by firm on the basis of

4
Widely acknowledged as the most comprehensive source for business information,
D&B is recognized by both global industry associations and the U.S. federal government
and claims to cover 94 percent of active U.S. businesses (they also have a database of

15
individual establishments coded geographically rather than by firm headquarters. D&B

updates are less timely than BLS data but more timely than the Census or County

Business Patterns. Every business is also assigned a Standard Industrial Classification

(SIC) code. AFTA uses 644 eight-digit Standard Industrial Classification Codes in its

cultural industries set. D&B's data set includes nonprofit organizations, though AFTA

tests suggest an under-representation of nonprofit arts organizations and individual

artists.

As of January 2006, the AFTA approach identifies over 548,000 arts-centric

businesses employing 2.9 workers nationally. These amount to 4.3 percent of all

businesses and 2.2 percent of all employees in the D&B database. The Boston metro is

home to 13,777 arts-related businesses that employ 73,003 people (Table 2). Comprised

of smaller establishments, the visual arts and photography sector accounts for 34%

percentage of arts-centric businesses but just 22% of arts employment. Conversely,

larger scale museums and collections account for 2.6% of the businesses but 7.9% of

employment. Over a recent two-year period, the more commercial segments of the

cultural industries—design and publishing, visual arts and photography, and film, radio

and TV—have posed higher employment growth rates than the museums, performing arts

and arts schools that are dominated by nonprofits. Mapping each establishment onto the

metro region, the AFTA research shows how broadly distributed arts-related businesses

are throughout the MSA, a pattern they have found holds across metros (Figure 1).

inactive businesses). As of January 2006, Dun & Bradstreet’s database included 12.8
million active businesses employing 132 million people. The federal government and
many state governments now require all contractors and grantees to have a Dun &
Bradstreet’s DUNS (data universal numbering system) number.

16
Figure 1. Boston Metro Distribution of Cultural Businesses

Americans for the Arts has produced and makes freely available online Creative

Industries maps and reports for all 50 states, 435 Congressional Districts, and 7,400 state

US House and Senate districts. Using mapping technology, the data can be localized to

any geographic area or political district in the country. This enables AFTA to provide

detailed data about the creative industries at the local and state levels and for any political

jurisdiction. The cultural industries data has been used by many arts and cultural

advocacy groups to educate legislatures, city councils, and the larger public about the

impact of cultural activity in their jurisdictions.

17
IV. An Occupational Approach to the Cultural Economy: the PRIE Studies

In the economic development field, researchers have long used industries as a

primary way of envisioning and analyzing a regional economy, an approach favoring

physical capital over human capital. Researchers have begun to develop a

complementary occupational approach to the regional economy, probing "what workers

do" rather than "what they make" (Thompson and Thompson, 1985, 1993; Mather, 1999;

Feser, 2003; Markusen, 2004, 2006a). In the industry approach, employment is

conceptualized and measured by allocating all establishments—actual physical locations

of production and service—into nested industries defined by major product. Regional

industry employment region is then computed as the totals for each establishment in each

industry. In an occupational approach, employment is divided into nested occupational

groups based on skill content and work process (Hecker et al, 2001). Regional

employment can be studied using "stereo vision" with industry and occupational "lenses"

and compared to other regions (Markusen and Schrock, 2007). Metro occupation-by-

industry distributions do not necessarily resemble national or state distributions,

especially in key high tech and business service industries (Barbour and Markusen,

2007).

In the late 1990s, the Project on Regional and Industrial Economics (PRIE) at

University of Minnesota began an intensive study of metro cultural economies using

artists as core cultural workers. Artists exhibit very high levels of self-employment (45%

nationally compared with 8% in the workforce as a whole and are relatively footloose and

unevenly distributed across US regions and metropolitan areas, often choosing where to

live and work independently of job offers from employers (Markusen and Schrock,

18
2006a). Although the project was theory-driven initially, the work was also designed to

help cultural policymakers transcend the limits of arts impact analysis, generally confined

to the nonprofit sector, by incorporating commercial arts employment and artists' self-

employment, including the direct export of their work (Markusen and King, 2003).

PRIE defines core cultural workers as artists--musicians, writers, performing and

visual artists, following social science conventions (e.g. Wassall and Alper, 1985;

Heilbrun, 1987). They considered adding architects, designers, editors, and other related

cultural workers to the definition, since these occupations also exhibit high self-

employment rates, and their members are doing work on symbols and texts. But many do

not consider themselves artists, and many are doing purely functional work. Adding

them would triple the size of the creative core and dilute the artistic content of the

definition.5 So PRIE uses a nested occupational definition, comparing the more focused

group, artists, and the more inclusive group, artists and related cultural workers (Table 3).

The PRIE team used Census PUMS 5% sample data, which asks artists on the

basis of their residence to identify their occupation and industry. The Census captures

self-employed artists, if their artwork is their primary occupation, gauged by the number

of hours worked, not income. It produces much higher estimates of artist populations

than employer-based data sources that do not include the self-employed. For instance,

for the Boston metro, the 2000 Census estimated 4207 writers to the Bureau of Labor

Statistics' estimate of 1120 (Markusen, Schrock, and Cameron, 2004, Table 10). The

5
We could not include arts administrators or arts teachers because since 2000, the
Census does not break them out from larger aggregations of administrators and teachers.
We included only employed artists, not those unemployed, to probe income, sector of
employment (private, nonprofit, public, self-employment), and industry patterns that
would be confused by including the unemployed.

19
Census figures are still an under-estimate, because they do not include artists who work a

second job. The Census is only available decennially, a draw back, but it does permit

socio-economic, mobility, and income analysis for fine-grained spatial units.

This definition and data yield a population estimate of 14,607 working artists for

Boston in 2000. Adding related cultural workers to the mix, the total rises to 49,184.

Boston's density of artists compares favorably with many other metros of its size in the

US (Table 4). By discipline, writers comprise Boston's "thickest" artistic occupation,

twice the national average. PRIE has also developed an extensive data set, from Census

and other sources, for analyzing the socio-economic and within-metro character of

Boston's core cultural workforce, mapping it and comparing it with other regions. For

instance, Boston's artists rank eighth in personal median income, while the region ranks

seventh in cost of living (Markusen and Schrock, 2006a, Table 10).

This work has been used extensively at the state and local level. PRIE has created

detailed profiles of the 2000 artistic workforce for many states and metropolitan regions

and shared them with arts researchers, government policymakers, artists' organizations,

advocacy groups and consultants. Studies of the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Los Angeles and

San Francisco Bay cultural economies have mapped and compared the artistic workforce

by artistic discipline, industry, socioeconomic characteristics, and migration patterns

(Markusen and Johnson, 2006; Markusen, Gilmore et al, 2006). PRIE researchers have

given dozens of talks to large public mixed audiences in both large cities and small

towns, in the US, Canada, Australia, Europe, and Japan.

20
V. Comparisons across Projects

Cultural industry and occupation definitions produce different aggregate

snapshots of the regional creative economy, much larger in the case of occupations than

industries. The NEFA and AFTA conceptions and data sources for the cultural industry

workforce produce modestly different results. The New England project estimates

Economic Census 2002 core cultural industries employment at 102,000 for the Boston

metro, while the Americans for the Arts Dun and Bradstreet estimates cultural industry

employment to be 75,000 in 2004 and 73,000 in 2006 (Tables 1 and 2). The NEFA

definition is more expansive than AFTAs, especially in its inclusion of many cultural

good production and distribution categories—the AFTA definition is conceptually nested

within the NEFA one, although operationally, the D&D data employs the older SIC codes

while the NEFA project uses the newer NAICS system. Differences in data collection

techniques and in years studied are additional possible sources of discrepancy.

In contrast, the cultural workforce estimates, computed using a single data source

for a single year, are more remarkable and demonstrate a rough nesting order (Table 5).

To the occupational estimates of the PRIE and NEFA projects described here, we have

computed the totals for Florida's (2002) creative class and super creative core and for the

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) definition of artists, all with 2000 Census

PUMS data.6 These six definitions produce dramatically different totals for the US

6
Florida's creative class consists of all managerial and professional Census (or SOC)
occupations, while his super creative core “is made up of people who work in science and
engineering, computers and mathematics, education, and the arts, design, and
entertainment, people who work in directly creative activity…” (2002: 74). The super
creative core includes 61 occupations in mathematics, engineering, physical and social
sciences, and education that lie outside NEFA's cultural workforce concept. Two NEFA
cultural workforce occupations lie outside of Florida’s super creative core, and only one

21
cultural workforce, from PRIE's low of 881,841 to Florida's 51.2 million. The Boston

metros creative class amounts to nearly 885,000 workers, 49% of the workforce, while

PRIE's artistic workforce accounts for just 14,600 workers, less than 1%. Inclusion also

affects the density estimates. The New England core cultural workers, Florida's super-

creative core, the NEA artists' metric and the PRIE expanded cultural workforce

definitions produce a location quotients between 1.48 and 1.56, compared with 1.27 from

Markusen and Schrock's artistic core definition and 1.27 from Florida's more expansive

definition. Higher densities in the former groups' estimates of cultural workforce density

are pulled up by occupations outside of the artistic core. Designers and especially

architects account for some of this effect in Boston (Markusen and Schrock, 2006a).

VI. Occupation by Industry

Regional cultural economies can also be studied by examining the inter-

relationship between industry and occupation, which may vary across regions. Curiously,

no researchers have used occupational density measures to identify cultural industries, the

most common way of distinguishing high tech industries (Markusen, Hall and Glasmeier,

1986; Chapple et al, 2004). Here we explore the Census 2000 distribution of artistic

occupations by industry for several metros and the US as a whole and find marked

differences.

lies outside Florida’s creative class. The NEFA definitions of cultural workforce are
nested within these. The NEA defines 11 occupation categories as artistic, all of which
are among the 31 in NEFA's core cultural workforce. The PRIE expanded artists and
related cultural workforce (including in this case the unemployed) is nested within the
NEFA definition, while PRIE's artistic occupations are nested within the NEA grouping.

22
 All efforts to operationalize the cultural economy are forced to work with industrial

and occupational categories that have been many decades in the making. In the US,

governments at the state and federal levels have been creating data sets for decades that

permit quite detailed perusal of occupational and industrial employment at the state,

metropolitan and county levels. Until the 1940s, the Census Bureau did not classify

occupations on the basis of what workers did but rather on the basis of industry, as in

“forestry workers,” “bank workers.” Beginning in the 1940s, a detailed occupational code

(SOC) was developed for the census to classify jobs more closely on the basis of what people

did, i.e. the nature of their work tasks rather than the product they produced. But it was not

until 1999 that all federal statistical agencies – including the Occupational Employment

Statistics (OES) program, BLS’ primary program to gather detailed data on occupational

employment– began officially adopting the SOC system. According to the BLS, “the SOC

system … incorporates structural features that free occupational classification from its

previously industry-rooted structure” (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2001), although BLS

statisticians acknowledge that the results were a compromise (Hecker et al, 2001).

An industry approach counts all workers in each industry, even if only a minority

of workers are actually engaged in producing cultural content. This method will generate

higher estimates of cultural employment than an occupational approach, reflected in the

Wassall and DeNatale creative economy work above. The advertising industry, for

instance, which is arguably cultural but can also be purely informational, employs five

times as many artists as does the economy as a whole (Table 6). But even a broad

definition of cultural workers applies to only 10% of the industry' work force, the rest of

which is comprised of disproportionately large numbers of sales people, accountants and

23
managers. Nevertheless, advertising would most likely be classified as a cultural industry

using a cultural occupation density measure.

Which industries are the largest employers of cultural workers, and would the use

of such a metric reproduce the set of cultural industries developed through researchers' ad

hoc methods? A look at the distribution of Boston's artistic workforce by industry,

compared to that of the US and two other major US metros, Los Angeles and Chicago, is

instructive (Table 7). The table shows the shares of working artists in the top five artist-

employing industries for each metro and the US. These figures include self-employed

artists, some of whom may work on contract for a single industry and so identify, while

others may assign themselves to the industry entitled "independent artists, performing

arts and spectator sports and related."

A number of industries that are not generally included in the list of cultural

industries employ rather large concentrations of artists nationally: "other professional,

scientific and technical services" (20% of visual artists); religious organizations (33% of

musicians); and colleges and universities (5% of performing artists, 4% of writers).

Others of note for some disciplines include specialized design services, restaurants,

management, scientific and technical consulting services, and civic, social and advocacy

organizations, including grantmaking. The figures demonstrate how important self-

employment and the largely nonprofit performing arts and museums (unfortunately

amalgamated in this data set) are for cultural workers.

The occupation by industry approach enables us to see the extent to which major

metropolitan areas vary in their cultural specialization. Boston concentrates its

performing artists in the radio and TV broadcasting sector, 42% compared to 28%

24
nationally. Its visual artists work in the specialized design services industry at almost

twice the national rate. Its prominent higher education sector accounts for much higher

shares of musicians, writers and performing artists than nationally. Its publishing and

management services industries are also important cultural employers. In contrast, Los

Angeles concentrates its visual artists and writers in the motion picture and video

industry, 20% to 3% nationally. Its sound recording industry is a large employer of

musicians. Mid-country, Chicago's visual and performing artists and writers are much

more heavily concentrated in advertising than in the nation or the other two metros, and

its management services and publishing industries are also large employers of artists.

This comparison is exploratory, but demonstrates the virtues of using occupational

screens to identify cultural industries. Given the regional variation, researchers might

include different sets of industries in defining their regional cultural economies.

VII. Concluding Remarks

The need for definitional clarity has become increasingly acute as applications of

the creative economy concept have become more widespread. While these have opened

up new understandings of the connections between commercial, non-profit, and

individual creative enterprise, they have also created significant confusion by using

inconsistent approaches and measures. Without a shared framework in which to examine

economic processes and relationships, there is no way to comparatively evaluate the

findings of individual assessments or to build an analysis in a way that can reliably

inform the development of public policy.

25
 We have shown in this paper how three different recent research efforts have

variously defined the cultural economy, using different variables, more or less inclusive

definitions of industries and occupations, and different data sources. In addition, other

researchers have used broader and different definitions and additional data sources—

including Florida's creative class work (2002) and Beyers' cultural industries work

(2006). Each was designed with different constituencies and policy arenas in mind.

We have designed a nested definitional sets of cultural industries and cultural

occupations that can be used by any number of different constituencies—arts advocacy

groups, trade associations, artists' service organizations, foundations and philanthropists,

educators, and state and local governments' cultural affairs, economic development and

workforce development agencies. With these, we have estimated cultural economy

employment for the Boston metro and the US, showing that the occupational definition is

particularly sensitive to issues of inclusion. Although there is no conceptual agreement on

whether to include sports, gambling, religion, and education as culture, or whether to

include forward (distribution and retailing) and backward (suppliers of equipment and

services to the cultural industries) linkages, this body of work clarifies the issues.

We have shown that there is, fortunately, good secondary data on many aspects of

the cultural economy, from multiple sources, over time and for geographic areas down

below state and city levels. We have reviewed a variety of data sources used to measure

cultural economy employment, some of which also offer estimates of output, revenue,

size and numbers of firms, and employment status, incomes, and socio-economic

characteristics of workers. Between our approaches and Beyers (2006), these include the

Census of Population's PUMS dataset, the Economic Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics'

26
Ocupational Employment Statistics, County Business Patterns, IRS records and Dun &

Bradstreet data. Some industries and occupations are still difficult to incorporate because

of data problems, e.g. the inability of distinguishing arts teachers from all teachers or

automobile designers from all autoworkers.

Researchers should be making much greater use of these options than they have to

date. In the policy field currently, definitions used are often not reproducible. We have a

responsibility to tease out the categories, state clearly what is and is not included in

definitions of the cultural economy, and why, and explain the strengths and weaknesses

of data used. We hope in future work to further develop interactive nested definitions of

the cultural economy that are transparent and useful for many different projects and

policy efforts. Writing this paper has helped us to understand the finer points of the

analysis and has changed our minds, to some extent, on conceptual issues. We hope to

engage other researchers on these issues and work towards the kind of consensus that the

tourism and information "industries," respectively, have been able bring to their policy

efforts, including engagements with the creators and maintainers of industry and

occupational categories and data sets.

27
Table 1. Cultural Industries, Occupations, Employment, Boston Metro, Massachusetts, New
England, US, 2002
Boston Massachusetts New England U.S.
Cultural Industries Employment 101787 132011 274719 4587826

% of Total Employment 4.13 4.06 3.97 3.52

Location Quotient 1.18 1.16 1.13

Cultural Workforce 72343 109314 225750 3660082

% of Total Labor Force 3.98 0.33 3.11 2.66

Location Quotient 1.50 1.24 1.17
Source: Gregory H. Wassall, 2006, tabulations from the 2002 Economic Census. Total
employment estimates are from the BLS. See Appendix Table A1 for industry codes and
Table A2 for occupational codes.

Table 2. Arts-Related Businesses, Employment, Boston Metro, 2004-2006

Businesses % Change Employees % Change
Industry 2006 2004-2006 2006 2004-2006
Museums and Collections 356 2.6 5798 7.9
Performing Arts 2262 16.4 9817 13.5
Visual Arts/Photography 4664 33.9 16134 22.1
Film, Radio and TV 1957 14.2 13498 18.5
Design and Publishing 3850 28.0 23644 32.4
Arts Schools and Services 688 5.0 4112 5.6

Total 13777 73003

Source: Randy Cohen, Americans for the Arts, 2006, from Dun & Bradstreet data.
Table 3. Employment, Arts and Cultural Occupations, United States, 2000
Artists: Core Cultural Workers 843,269
% of total employment 0.6%
Visual artists
Artists and Related Workers 225,032
Photographers 117,424
Performing artists
Actors 27,340
Producers and Directors 134,393
Dancers and Choreographers 23,939
Musicians, Singers, and Related Workers 158,475
Writers and Authors 156,666

Related Cultural Workers 1,534,871

% of total employment 1.2%
Architects, Except Naval 193,757
Archivists, Curators, and Museum Technicians 35,170
Designers 726,333
Entertainers and Performers, Sports and Related Workers, All Other 34,369
Media and Communications Workers
Announcers 52,317
News Analysts, Reporters, and Correspondents 90,366
Editors 176,297
Technical Writers 70,331
Miscellaneous Media and Communications Workers 59,633
Broadcast and Sound Engineering Technicians and Radio Operators 96,298

Artists and Related Cultural Workers 2,378,140

% of total employment 1.8%

Total US employment 130,869,287

Source: Ann Markusen, Sara Thompson and Greg Schrock, Markusen Economic Research
Services, from Census 2000, 5% PUMS dataset.
Table 4. Artistic concentrations, selected US metro areas, employment, 2000
Performing Visual
Total Artists Artists Authors Musicians
Los Angeles, CA 2.99 5.44 2.34 2.71 1.95
New York, NY-NJ 2.52 3.71 2.01 2.99 1.85
San Francisco-Oakland, CA 1.82 1.85 1.83 2.51 1.12
Washington, DC-MD-VA-WV 1.36 1.51 1.01 2.27 1.08
Seattle, WA 1.33 1.15 1.48 1.48 1.06
Boston, MA-NH 1.27 1.24 1.02 2.00 1.15
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI 1.16 1.12 1.10 1.33 1.16
San Diego, CA 1.15 0.90 1.27 1.10 1.25
Miami, FL 1.15 1.48 1.05 0.82 1.28
Portland, OR-WA 1.09 1.12 0.99 1.50 0.87
Atlanta, GA 1.08 1.05 1.11 0.97 1.15
Chicago, IL 1.04 0.83 1.14 1.27 0.84

US AVERAGE 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

Dallas, TX 0.99 1.08 1.11 0.73 0.87

Philadelphia, PA-NJ 0.96 0.90 1.04 0.94 0.88
Phoenix, AZ 0.96 0.70 1.13 0.88 0.94
Denver, CO 0.90 1.08 0.82 0.98 0.79
San Jose, CA 0.84 0.75 0.95 0.95 0.61
Houston, TX 0.74 0.65 0.75 0.66 0.91
Detroit, MI 0.74 0.61 0.82 0.73 0.74
Source: Markusen and Schrock, 2006a: Table 1. Data from the Census 2000 5% PUMS
dataset, Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample, compiled by Steven Ruggle, Matthew
Sobek et al. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0 Minneapolis:
Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota.
Table 5: Cultural Workforce-Creative Class Employment Comparisons, 2000
Boston U.S. (millions,
%)
Creative Class (Florida) 884475 52.1
% of Total Labor Force 48.66 37.9
Location Quotient 1.29

Super Creative Core (Florida) 336813 17.3

% of Total Labor Force 18.53 12.6
Location Quotient 1.48

Cultural Workforce (NEFA) 72343 3.7

% of Total Labor Force 3.98 2.66
Location Quotient 1.50

Artists and Related Cultural Workers (PRIE) 50890 2.4

% of Total Labor Force 2.83 1.82
Location Quotient 1.56

Artists, Architects and Designers (NEA) 38716 1.9

% of Total Labor Force 2.13 1.40
Location Quotient 1.52

Artists (PRIE) 15515 0.8

% of Total Labor Force 0.84 0.64
Location Quotient 1.27
Source: Tabulations from the 2000 Census Public Use Sample.
See text for definitions of occupations included.
Table 6. Cultural Workers in the Advertising Industry, United States, 2002
Occupational Title Employment % total
Graphic Designers 18,340 4.17
Art Directors 8,150 1.85
Writers and Authors 5,850 1.33
Multi-Media Artists and Animators 4,940 1.12
Merchandise Displayers and Window Trimmers 3,200 0.73
Producers and Directors 2,540 0.58
Fine Artists, incl. Painters, Sculptors, Illustrators 570 0.13
Commercial and Industrial Designers 560 0.13
Set and Exhibit Designers 180 0.04
Interior Designers 30 0.01
Actors 50 0.01
Total, Core Cultural Workers (Artists) 22,100 5.03
Total, Cultural Occupations in Advertising 44,110 10.10
Total Employment, All Occupations 439,700 100
Source: BLS, Occupational Employment Statistics, 2002
Advertising is defined as NAICS Code 5418.
Table 7. Employed artists, top five industries, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston Metro, US, 2000
% of occupational employment
Los
Boston Chicago Angeles US
Visual artists
Independent artists, performing arts, spectator sports 25.5 17.9 24.0 27.1
Other professional, scientific and technical services 20.1 19.1 13.9 19.6
Specialized design services 11.7 7.3 6.1 6.0
Advertising services 4.9 16.0 4.2 5.1
Newspaper publishers 4.5 3.9
Motion pictures and video industries 19.6 2.7
Management, scientific, technical consulting services 3.0 0.4
Performing artists
Radio and television broadcasting and cable 41.5 19.1 15.6 27.5
Independent artists, performing arts, spectator sports 14.5 24.2 22.5 21.3
Motion pictures and video industries 11.4 20.4 48.7 20.0
Colleges and universities, including junior colleges 6.2 4.6
Advertising services 5.2 9.6 1.3 3.2
Employment services 3.5 0.7
Computer systems design services 2.7 0.4
Musicians and composers
Independent artists, performing arts, spectator sports 51.2 46.5 64.9 46.8
Religious organizations 28.7 31.9 9.8 32.5
Restaurants and other food services 3.0 4.4 3.8 3.2
Sound recording industries 2.9 7.2 2.7
Elementary and secondary schools 2.6 2.3 1.6
Colleges and universities, including junior colleges 3.4 0.9
Motion pictures and video industries 2.7 0.9
Writers and authors
Independent artists, performing arts, spectator sports 23.6 30.9 45.3 35.8
Advertising services 12.1 15.5 4.1 9.5
Publishing, except newspapers and software 14.0 11.1 6.1 7.9
Newspaper publishers 3.5 7.5
Colleges and universities, including junior colleges 6.8 3.6
Motion pictures and video industries 20.0 3.1
Radio and television broadcasting and cable 6.6 3.0
Management, scientific, technical consulting services 8.6 2.3
Civic, social, advocacy organizations, grantmaking 4.2 1.9
Source: Ann Markusen and Greg Schrock, Markusen Economic Research Services, from 2000
Census data from Steven Ruggles, Matthew Sobek et al. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series:
Version 3.0 Minneapolis: Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota.
Table A1: New England Cultural Industries - NAICS Categories Included In Core Component
NAICS Industry
Group 1 Cultural Goods Production
323110 Commercial Lithographic Printing
323111 Commercial Gravure Printing
323112 Commercial Flexographic Printing
323113 Commercial Screen Printing
323115 Digital Printing
323117 Books Printing
323119 Other Commercial Printing
323121 Tradebinding and Related Work
323122 Prepress Services
325992 Photographic Film, Paper, Plate, and Chemical Manufacturing
327112 Vitreous China, Fine Earthenware, and Other Pottery Product Manufacturing
327212 Other Pressed and Blown Glass and Glassware Manufacturing
332323 Ornamental and Architectural Metal Work Manufacturing
333293 Printing Machinery and Equipment Manufacturing
334310 Audio and Video Equipment Manufacturing
334612 Prerecorded Compact Disc (except Software), Tape, and Record Reproducing
337212 Custom Architectural Woodwork and Millwork Manufacturing
339911 Jewelry (except Costume) Manufacturing
339912 Silverware and Hollowware Manufacturing
339913 Jewelers' Material and Lapidary Work Manufacturing
339914 Costume Jewelry and Novelty Manufacturing
339942 Lead Pencil and Art Good Manufacturing
339992 Musical Instrument Manufacturing

Group 2 Cultural Goods Distribution

423410 Photographic Equipment and Supplies Merchant Wholesalers
423940 Jewelry, Watch, Precious Stone, and Precious Metal Merchant Wholesalers
424110 Printing and Writing Paper Merchant Wholesalers
424920 Book, Periodical, and Newspaper Merchant Wholesalers
443112 Radio, Television, and Other Electronics Stores
443130 Camera and Photographic Supplies Stores
448310 Jewelry Stores
451130 Sewing, Needlework, and Piece Goods Stores
451140 Musical Instrument and Supplies Stores
451211 Book Stores
451220 Prerecorded Tape, Compact Disc, and Record Stores
453920 Art Dealers
812921 Photofinishing Laboratories (except One-Hour)
812922 One-Hour Photofinishing

Group 3 Intellectual Property Production & Distribution

511110 Newspaper Publishers
511120 Periodical Publishers
511130 Book Publishers
511191 Greeting Card Publishers
511199 All Other Publishers
512110 Motion Picture and Video Production
512120 Motion Picture and Video Distribution
512131 Motion Picture Theaters (except Drive-Ins)
512132 Drive-In Motion Picture Theaters
512191 Teleproduction and Other Postproduction Services
512199 Other Motion Picture and Video Industries
continued
512210 Record Production
512220 Integrated Record Production/Distribution
512230 Music Publishers
512240 Sound Recording Studios
512290 Other Sound Recording Industries
515111 Radio Networks
515112 Radio Stations
515120 Television Broadcasting
515210 Cable and Other Subscription Programming
516110 Internet Publishing and Broadcasting
517510 Cable and Other Program Distribution
519110 News Syndicates
519120 Libraries and Archives
532230 Video Tape and Disc Rental
541310 Architectural Services
541320 Landscape Architectural Services
541340 Drafting Services
541410 Interior Design Services
541420 Industrial Design Services
541430 Graphic Design Services
541490 Other Specialized Design Services
541810 Advertising Agencies
541830 Media Buying Agencies
541840 Media Representatives
541850 Display Advertising
541921 Photography Studios, Portrait
541922 Commercial Photography
711110 Theater Companies and Dinner Theaters
711120 Dance Companies
711130 Musical Groups and Artists
711190 Other Performing Arts Companies
711510 Independent Artists, Writers, and Performers

Group 4 Educational Services

611610 Fine Arts Schools
712110 Museums
712120 Historical Sites
712130 Zoos and Botanical Gardens
712190 Nature Parks and Other Similar Institutions
Source: New England Foundation for the Arts, 2006
Table A2: New England Cultural Workforce: SOC and Census Occupational Codes Included in Core
Definition
SOC Census Occupation
11-2011 0040 Advertising and Promotions Managers
11-2031 0060 Public Relations Managers
17-1011 1300 Architects, Except Landscape and Naval
17-1012 1300 Landscape Architects
17-3011 [Part of 1540] Architectural and Civil Drafters
19-3091 [Part of 1860] Anthropologists and Archeologists
19-3093 [Part of 1860] Historians
25-1031 [Part of 2200] Architecture Teachers, Postsecondary
25-1061 [Part of 2200] Anthropology and Archeology Teachers, Postsecondary
25-1062 [Part of 2200] Area, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies Teachers, Postsecondary
25-1082 [Part of 2200] Library Science Teachers, Postsecondary
25-1121 [Part of 2200] Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary
25-1122 [Part of 2200] Communications Teachers, Postsecondary
25-1123 [Part of 2200] English Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary
25-1124 [Part of 2200] Foreign Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary
25-1125 [Part of 2200] History Teachers, Postsecondary
25-4011 2400 Archivists
25-4012 2400 Curators
25-4013 2400 Museum Technicians and Conservators
25-4021 2430 Librarians
25-4031 2440 Library Technicians
25-9011 [Part of 2550] Audio-Visual Collections Specialists
27-1011 2600 Art Directors
27-1012 2600 Craft Artists
27-1013 2600 Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators
27-1014 2600 Multi-Media Artists and Animators
27-1019 2600 Artists and Related Workers, All Other
27-1021 2630 Commercial and Industrial Designers
27-1022 2630 Fashion Designers
27-1023 2630 Floral Designers
27-1024 2630 Graphic Designers
27-1025 2630 Interior Designers
27-1026 2630 Merchandise Displayers and Window Trimmers
27-1027 2630 Set and Exhibit Designers
27-1029 2630 Designers, All Other
27-2011 2700 Actors
27-2012 2710 Producers and Directors
continued
27-2031 2740 Dancers
27-2032 2740 Choreographers
27-2041 2750 Music Directors and Composers
27-2042 2750 Musicians and Singers
27-3011 2800 Radio and Television Announcers
27-3012 2800 Public Address System and Other Announcers
27-3021 2810 Broadcast News Analysts
27-3022 2810 Reporters and Correspondents
27-3031 2820 Public Relations Specialists
27-3041 2830 Editors
27-3042 2840 Technical Writers
27-3043 2850 Writers and Authors
27-3099 2860 Media and Communication Workers, All Other
27-4011 2900 Audio and Video Equipment Technicians
27-4012 2900 Broadcast Technicians
27-4013 2900 Radio Operators
27-4014 2900 Sound Engineering Technicians
27-4021 2910 Photographers
27-4031 2920 Camera Operators, Television, Video, and Motion Picture
27-4032 2920 Film and Video Editors
27-4099 2960 Media and Communication Equipment Workers, All Other
39-3021 4410 Motion Picture Projectionists
39-3092 [Part of 4430] Costume Attendants
39-5091 [Part of 4520] Makeup Artists, Theatrical and Performance
41-3011 4800 Advertising Sales Agents
43-4121 5320 Library Assistants, Clerical
43-9031 5830 Desktop Publishers
49-2097 7120 Electronic Home Entertainment Equipment Installers and Repairers
49-9061 [Part of 7430] Camera and Photographic Equipment Repairers
49-9063 [Part of 7430] Musical Instrument Repairers and Tuners
49-9064 [Part of 7430] Watch Repairers
51-5011 8230 Bindery workers
51-5012 8230 Bookbinders
51-9071 8750 Jewelers and Precious Stone and Metal Workers
51-9123 [Part of 8810] Painting, Coating, and Decorating Workers
51-9131 8830 Photographic Process Workers
51-9132 8830 Photographic Processing Machine Operators
Source: New England Foundation for the Arts, 2006.
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