This study examines the influence of fine arts activities at young age on employment, earnings and job autonomy. Politicians and scientists both believe that participation in arts activities is valuable for young people. They stress mainly the positive short-term effects of participation on cognitive and non-cognitive skills. There is no research available explicitly examining the long-term effects of participation in fine arts activities. It is therefore relevant to find out if fine arts activities are also valuable for labor market outcomes. Human capital and signaling theory predict a positive effect of fine arts activities on employment, earnings and job autonomy. The present study uses data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 to validate the theoretical predictions. The dataset contains information on high school sophomores and their fine arts activities. It also contains information on their labor market outcomes ten years later. The data are examined by OLS regressions, binary and ordered logit models and instrumental variables regressions. Contrary to expectations, it turns out that fine arts activities have no influence on employment, they may have a negative effect on earnings and they may lead to a lower level of job autonomy.

Delfgaauw, Josse
hdl.handle.net/2105/38295
Business Economics
Erasmus School of Economics

Dijkslag, Harmco. (2017, July 14). Fine arts activities and labor market outcomes: an empirical study. Business Economics. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2105/38295