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The concentric circles model of the

cultural industries
a
David Throsby
a
Division of Economic and Financial Studies , Macquarie
University , Sydney, Australia
Published online: 26 Sep 2008.

To cite this article: David Throsby (2008) The concentric circles model of the cultural industries,
Cultural Trends, 17:3, 147-164, DOI: 10.1080/09548960802361951

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 Cultural Trends
Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2008, 147– 164

The concentric circles model of the cultural industries

David Throsby

Division of Economic and Financial Studies, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

This paper examines the assumptions and structure of the concentric circles model of the
cultural industries. Empirical data for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US
are used to illustrate the model’s key characteristic: the proposition that the cultural content
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of the output of the cultural industries declines as one moves outwards from the core. The
test uses the proportion of creative labour employed in production as a proxy for cultural
content. The results confirm the model’s validity as a means of depicting the structural
characteristics of the cultural industries and also enable some wider features of the cultural
workforce in the five countries to be examined.
Keywords: creative economy; cultural industries; concentric circles model; cultural
occupations; cultural value; cultural policy

Introduction
The cultural industries have become an increasingly important focus of attention for cultural policy
in a number of countries in recent years. Governments have begun to recognise the role of crea-
tivity as a key resource in driving innovation and promoting competitive advantage in a globalised
world (Anheier & Isar, 2008). Concepts such as the creative economy have come into existence as
a means of identifying the sectors of the macroeconomy producing creative goods and services in
both developed and developing countries (Howkins, 2001; United Nations Conference on Trade &
Development, 2008). At the heart of the creative economy are the cultural or creative industries,
and hence a new orientation for cultural policy has begun to emerge, one that shifts the emphasis
from a predominant concern with high culture and support for the arts to a more wide-ranging and
pragmatic preoccupation with the cultural industries’ contribution to employment creation and
economic growth.1 Of course the relationship between the cultural industries and cultural
policy has been a long-standing matter for discussion within the cultural studies and political
economy traditions (Garnham, 1990; Hartley, 2005; Hesmondhalgh & Pratt, 2005; Lewis &
Miller, 2003; McGuigan, 2004; Pratt, 2005). However, the rapid technological change associated
with globalisation that has occurred over the last decade or so has brought the cultural industries,
and their role in cultural policy, into a new prominence.
But defining the cultural or creative industries remains a matter of some debate, and no clear
agreement exists yet as to exactly which industries should or should not be included in the cultural
sector of the economy. Furthermore, an essential requirement for effective policy formulation is a
systematic understanding of the structure of the cultural economy and how its various parts
fit together. There are a number of ways of interpreting the structural characteristics of the
cultural industries, and indeed several different models have been put forward to describe and
classify them, each with its own interpretation of the coverage of the cultural industries


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DOI: 10.1080/09548960802361951
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 148 D. Throsby

concept (Throsby, 2007). These models include: the well-known categorisation used in the
development of the UK’s creative industries policy strategy (Department of Culture, Media &
Sport [DCMS], 2001); the copyright-based model adopted by the World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO, 2003); models derived from a cultural studies perspective in which these
industries are seen as purveyors of symbolic texts (e.g. Hesmondhalgh, 2002); and a model
developed within UNESCO’s Institute for Statistics (2007) to provide a new classification
system for the cultural industries as a basis for working towards international consistency in
statistical collections.
All of these models differ in the composition of the list of industries that meet their criteria for
inclusion, reflecting at least in part differences in the emphasis they place on an economic as distinct
from a cultural interpretation of cultural goods and services. Thus, for example, the WIPO model
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focuses on the revenue-earning potential of intellectual property rights and hence adopts a clearly
commercial orientation in its definition of cultural or creative commodities. Models originating in
the field of cultural studies, by contrast, focus on the cultural value inherent in the products of the
cultural industries, seeing this as the primary source of their economic worth (O’Connor, 2000, p. 5).
One model whose definition of cultural goods and services combines economic and cultural
characteristics on more or less equal terms is the concentric circles model, in which the creative
arts are placed at the centre and other industries are grouped around them. Seeing the arts as the
core of the cultural industries has some precedents. For example, Garnham (1990, pp. 154– 155)
noted the focus of traditional arts policy on the central status of the creative artist, a focus that was
decisively rejected by the Greater London Council’s creative industries strategy in the 1980s. A
pivotal role for the arts was also depicted in an unpublished report for the British Council
(Gorham & Partners, 1987) in which the later stages in the artistic production chain (distribution,
associated activities, etc.) were portrayed as concentric circles around the original creative arts.
Subsequently Garnham (2001, p. 450) has pointed out that a central role for the artist has been
reasserted in contemporary policy statements through reference to a “creative core”, alongside
a rejection of any distinction between high and popular culture.
As will be seen below, the model discussed in the present paper differs somewhat from these
precursors. It was enunciated in general terms in Throsby (2001a, pp. 112– 113) and subsequently
developed in other places, for example in recent studies prepared for the European Commission
(KEA European Affairs, 2006, pp. 53 –57) and in the UK (The Work Foundation, 2007), where
the concentric circles idea is used as a basis for classifying the creative industries in Europe and
the UK respectively.2
This paper outlines the structure of the concentric circles model, considers the assumptions on
which it is based, and derives some empirical evidence to illustrate the model’s application by
assembling data relating to the cultural industries in five countries (Australia, Canada, New
Zealand, the UK and the US). The paper also examines some wider features of the employment
contribution of the cultural industries in these countries.

The model
The concentric circles model is based initially on the proposition that cultural goods and services
give rise to two distinguishable types of value: economic and cultural. Such a proposition can be
used in principle as a basis for defining cultural goods and services as a distinct commodity class,3
and indeed is a distinction that is common to a variety of fields concerned with the value of cul-
tural phenomena.4 The model asserts that it is the cultural value, or cultural content, of the goods
and services produced that gives the cultural industries their most distinguishing characteristic.
 Cultural Trends 149

Different goods have different degrees of cultural content relative to their commercial value;
the model proposes that the more pronounced the cultural content of a particular good or
service, the stronger is the claim of the industry producing it to be counted as a cultural industry.
Thus are the concentric circles delineated: at the centre are core industries whose proportion of
cultural to commercial content is judged according to given criteria to be highest, with layers
extending outwards from the centre as the cultural content falls relative to the commercial
value of the commodities or services produced.
How and by whom are these criteria to be determined? There are undoubtedly different
interpretations as to how the cultural content of the output of a given cultural industry might
be assessed. A student of cultural studies, for example, might look to the power and reach of
the symbolic messages conveyed by given cultural products as an indicator of their cultural
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content, whereas a lawyer might use a scale related to the intellectual property rights involved.
The concentric circles model adopts an assumption that cultural content springs from the incor-
poration of creative ideas into the production and/or presentation of sound, text and image and
that these ideas originate in the arenas of primary artistic creativity. This is an assumption that
accords primacy to the processes of artistic (as distinct from scientific) creativity, and is the
reason why the creative arts – music, drama, dance, visual art, literature – lie at the centre of
the model, with successive layers of the concentric circles defined as the ideas and influences
of these creative activities diffuse outwards.
On this basis four layers or circles can be proposed to classify the industries that produce cul-
tural goods and services according to the definitions discussed above. The categories and the main
industries they contain are listed below and are illustrated in diagrammatic form in Figure 1.

Core creative arts

. Literature
. Music
. Performing arts
. Visual arts

Other core cultural industries

. Film
. Museums, galleries, libraries
. Photography

Wider cultural industries

. Heritage services
. Publishing and print media
. Sound recording
. Television and radio
. Video and computer games

Related industries
. Advertising
. Architecture
. Design
. Fashion
 150 D. Throsby
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Figure 1. The concentric circles model of the cultural industries.

Although the above designation of four industry groups, and the allocation of particular industries
between them, is derived from the set of assumptions on which the concentric circles model is
based, decisions as to which industry goes where are essentially ad hoc;5 they do not rely on
any objective benchmarks for assessing the cultural or commercial content of the goods and
services produced. This is hardly surprising, since complex and multifaceted concepts such as
cultural content, cultural value and creative ideas have no obvious metric. Nevertheless some
ex post validation of the concentric circles model’s classification system can be made by reference
to empirical data, as discussed further below.
It should be noted that the “diffusion of creative ideas and influences” may occur through the
sorts of generalised communication and exchange processes that govern the circulation of knowl-
edge and information in the economy and society at large; for example, the plot of a novel or play
may suggest ideas for a video or computer game. More concretely, the diffusion of ideas may arise
through the fact that creative people who generate them actually work in different industries, pro-
viding direct input to the production of cultural content in industries further from the core; for
example, a visual artist may have a creative practice producing original artworks, but may also
work in the design industry, or an actor may appear on stage in the live theatre, as well as
making television commercials in the advertising industry. However it happens, it is the creative
ideas that generate the cultural content in the output of these industries.
As an interpretation of the structure of cultural production, the concentric circles model can be
seen as a static snapshot at a given point in time, in contrast to a dynamic form of analysis such as
a value chain model. In the latter, an original creative idea is traced from its origins through a
value-adding process of production, distribution and marketing to final consumption. In the con-
centric circles model, downstream functions such as distribution are represented as distinct indus-
tries in their own right, incorporating original creative ideas produced in the core into their
 Cultural Trends 151

production processes as intermediate inputs. For example, television scriptwriters, located at the
core of the model, sell their work to broadcasters located in the “wider cultural industries” circle.
At a given point in time the output of both industries – the scriptwriting industry and the tele-
vision industry – can be observed and, under appropriate assumptions, the cultural content of
their output assessed, as described in the next section.6

The need for empirical evidence

It is one thing to propose a classification of the cultural industries based on the relative level of
cultural content in the industries’ various outputs; it is quite another to put the classification into
effect on the basis of objective measurement. As noted above, cultural content has no immediately
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obvious unit of account, and in any case it is a concept where interpretation will vary according to
the standpoint of the observer. Thus trying to assess cultural content from the output side would
seem to offer little chance of success. However, it may be possible to obtain a proxy for cultural
content by looking at the inputs used in cultural production.
Specifically, we might assume that the cultural content of output as defined in the concentric
circles model is proportional to the level of creative input, and that the sole indicator of the
input of creativity is the amount of creative labour used in production. Inputs of creative labour
in various industries are likely to be measurable, for example if we can associate creative
labour with what can be termed creative occupations. If occupations can be classified as creative
or non-creative, it should be possible, using data on employment cross-tabulated by occupation
and industry, to calculate for a given geographical entity such as a city, a state, a region, a country
or a group of countries, the proportion of creative to total employment in each of the industries in
the model. These proportions might then be taken as a proxy for the cultural content of the output
of those industries according to the assumptions of the model. The hypothesis to be tested is that
these proportions will decline as one moves outwards through the concentric circles of the model.
Such a procedure requires an initial assignment of occupations to creative or non-creative cat-
egories. In most areas of cultural production it is relatively easy to distinguish between creative
and non-creative occupations: in the theatre industry, for example, actors, writers and directors are
clear examples of creative occupations, whereas stagehands, ticket sellers and accountants can be
labelled non-creative.7 Nevertheless the distinction cannot be regarded as entirely clear cut and
unambiguous, and borderline cases will always arise. For example, how should one classify a
writer such as a journalist, or a craftsperson making production runs of pottery items? Moreover
some cultural outputs – for example in theatre, television and film – are produced by teams,
where the creative input is diffused across all members of the group including those whose occu-
pations may not be obviously creative in nature.
Despite these difficulties, a broadly workable classification should be possible, especially if a
more precise definition of a creative occupation can be articulated. Such a definition might recog-
nise, for example, three specific types of creative activity within the cultural sector (Throsby,
2003, p. 175): the production of primary creative output by occupations such as writers, compo-
sers, visual artists, film and video makers, sculptors, craftspeople, etc.; creative interpretation as
practised by performers in dance, drama, music, etc. in a variety of media; and the supply of crea-
tive services in support of arts and cultural production by workers such as book editors, lighting
designers, music producers and so on.8
It should be noted that if census data are to be used as the empirical source of employment
numbers, the well-known deficiencies of such data in measuring the cultural workforce must
be borne in mind.9 These problems include the question of whether or not census data can
 152 D. Throsby

adequately capture the numbers of practising professional artists. A difficulty in this respect arises
because a worker’s job for the purpose of the statistical collection is generally specified as the
“main job” held in the week of the census; as a result a number of professional artists, who
out of financial necessity or for other reasons work only part-time in the arts, will be allocated
to some other occupation such as teacher or taxi driver. Hence the true number of people
employed in a particular cultural occupation will be underestimated. On the other hand, since
census forms are self-completed, some would-be or dilettante artists may declare themselves as
full-time professionals when in fact their contribution to creative output in the economy is low
or zero. Furthermore census data are seen to have particular problems in cities like London
where transient populations, people with language difficulties, etc. are disproportionately rep-
resented (Higgs, Cunningham, & Bakhshi, 2008, pp. 34 –35). Finally, the occupational descrip-
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tions as specified on census forms may not always correspond exactly to the detail of what
creative people actually do.
To summarise, the empirical information required for any given country in order to test the
hypothesis put forward above amounts to a two-way table of numbers of workers by industry
and occupation; the table will specify individual cultural industries and the aggregate of non-cultural
industries, whilst occupations will be disaggregated into creative and non-creative categories. Such
a cross-tabulation has been used in earlier studies to examine the structure of the cultural workforce
(Throsby, 2003), and has recently been examined more closely by Cunningham (2006) and Higgs
et al. (2008), who interpret the two-by-two classification (creative/non-creative industries by
creative/non-creative workers) as identifying a “creative trident”, comprising three of the four
quadrants in the table:

. specialist workers: those employed in core creative occupations within creative industries;
. support workers: those employed in other occupations within the creative industries; and
. embedded workers: those employed in core creative occupations within other industries.

These papers argue that the direct economic impact of the creative industries is frequently
underestimated because the embedded workers are overlooked.

Application
The procedures outlined above were applied to data from five countries: Australia, Canada, New
Zealand, the UK and the US. Detailed tabulations and data sources can be found in Throsby and
Zednik (2007). This section of the present paper summarises the main results and tests the hypoth-
esis put forward above concerning the structure of the concentric circles model.
The first problem encountered in data-gathering for this study was the fact that there is no
common standard for identifying and classifying either cultural industries or cultural occupations
across the countries under consideration that would enable a consistent allocation to be made of
industries to categories or occupations to creative/non-creative status. Hence a number of
approximations were necessary to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of the various countries’
data sources.
In the case of the industry classification, each of the five countries uses different amalgamations
of particular activities in their industry definitions for the cultural sector, making assignment of
industries to the four categories delineated above occasionally problematical; for example, film
is sometimes listed separately, and sometimes it is included with television. Furthermore, the
number of individual cultural industries or groups of industries that could be identified varied
 Cultural Trends 153

from country to country, from 10 in Canada to 24 in New Zealand. The cultural industries for
which data could be obtained were assigned to one of the four categories according to the
scheme outlined earlier in this paper; the specific industries included in each category for each
country are summarised in Table 1 (fuller details are given in Throsby & Zednik, 2007).
In regard to occupational classifications, we were able to make use of the framework for cul-
tural statistics developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) which has defined what it
calls “cultural occupations” to include, in addition to the major category “artists and related
professionals”, a number of other occupations such as architects, librarians, museum curators,
technicians working in the arts, and so on (ABS, 1996). Adoption of this categorisation broadens
the scope of cultural occupations considerably, and suggests that it is necessary to identify a
subgroup of specifically creative occupations within the broader cultural occupation category,
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bearing in mind the conceptual basis of the concentric circles model.

Adopting the ABS cultural occupation categories and identifying a specifically creative
subgroup within them led to the following classification:

Cultural occupations, comprising:

(a) Creative occupations
. Visual artists
. Photographers, sculptors, craftspeople
. Writers, editors
. Musicians, composers, singers
. Dancers, choreographers,
. Actors
. Directors
(b) Other cultural occupations
. Designers, architects
. Journalists, presenters
. Producers
. Librarians, curators, administrators
. Technicians
. Support personnel

Results
Employment data gathered for Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK for the year 2001 and
for the US for 2004 are summarised in Appendix Tables 1– 5, and the relevant percentages of
creative and cultural employment to total employment in each of the concentric circles are
shown in Appendix Table 6. Table 2 draws together the results required to test the hypothesis
put forward above concerning the structure of the concentric circles model.
Given the assumptions of the model, it is apparent that the results in Table 2 are consistent with
the hypothesis under review; i.e. they indicate that the proportion of creative labour used in pro-
duction, as an indicator of the cultural content of the output of the industries included in the
model, does indeed decline as one moves outwards from the centre of the concentric circles.
This result holds true for all five countries and for both cultural employment and the more nar-
rowly defined concept of creative employment. The rate of decline varies between countries
because of differences in the capture of each country’s industries and occupations in each of
 154
Table 1. Cultural industries included in each concentric-circles classification: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and USA.

D. Throsby
Other core creative
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Core creative arts industries Wider cultural industries Related industries

AUSTRALIA Music and theatre Film and video publishing; Publishing/printing; Architecture, Advertising, Commercial Arts
production; Museums, libraries; Radio/TV; Display;
Creative arts Photographic studios; Film distribution and Religious organisations;
Services to the arts exhibition Parks and gardens;
Other cultural industries
CANADA Performing arts, spectator Heritage institutions; Printing/publishing; Professional, scientific and technical services;
sports and related Photographic services Broadcasting and Clothing, fashion, design;
industries telecommunications; Religious, grant-making, civic, and
Motion picture and sound professional and similar organisations
recording industries
NEW ZEALAND Music, theatre Film and video Printing/publishing; Advertising & commercial art;
productions, performing production; Radio/TV; Architectural services;
arts venues; Museums, libraries; Other film, video and Religious organisations;
Creative arts Photographic studios; sound Interest groups not elsewhere classified
Services to the arts not
elsewhere defined
UNITED Artistic and literary Motion picture and video Publishing/printing; Advertising;
KINGDOM creation & activities; Radio/TV; Architectural and engineering activities and
interpretation, live Library; archives; Miscellaneous business related technical consultancy;
theatre, operation of arts museums and other activities not elsewhere Clothing/ fashion/design
facilities, dance halls, cultural activities; classified
fair and amusement Manufacture of musical
parks instruments;
Photographic services
UNITED STATES Music and theatre Motion picture and video Publishing/printing; Advertising and related services;
production; industries; Radio/TV; Architectural, engineering, and related
Independent artists, Museums, libraries; Sound recording industries services;
writers, and performers Photographic services; Clothing, fashion, design;
Services to the arts Religious organisations
 Cultural Trends 155

Table 2. Proportions of creative/cultural employment to total employment in cultural industry groups:

Australia (2001), Canada (2001), New Zealand (2001), UK (2001), USA (2004) (%).
Industry group Australia Canada New Zealand United Kingdom United States
Proportion of total industry employment in creative occupations
Core creative industries 65.3 46.7 53.7 41.7 42.5
Other core creative industries 17.5 25.7 17.5 13.7 21.2
Wider cultural industries 9.3 5.7 5.6 4.3 6.9
Related industries 1.4 0.8 2.1 1.7 2.1
Proportion of total industry employment in all cultural occupations
Core creative industries 80.2 64.3 65.9 46.2 55.7
Other core creative industries 61.3 46.9 58.3 39.1 42.3
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Wider cultural industries 46.1 22.1 21.1 25.5 20.6

Related industries 31.8 11.6 20.8 15.4 12.3
Source: Appendix Table 6.

the model’s categories. For the same reason, the percentages cannot be compared across the table;
it is not possible, for example, to conclude from Table 2 that core creative employment in
Australia is necessarily higher in proportional terms than in the other countries shown.
These results may also be used to examine some wider features of the cultural workforce in the
five countries, as shown in Table 3. For example, the total employment in the cultural industries as
a proportion of total national employment levels is indicated in the first column of the table. In
four of the five countries the cultural industries as defined in this study can be seen to account
for around 4% of the workforce;10 the somewhat higher level in the UK arises because of the par-
ticular industries included in that country’s data.11
It was noted earlier that employment in the cultural industries alone may understate total cul-
tural employment insofar as workers in cultural occupations employed in non-cultural industries
are not counted. In the “creative trident” model, these workers are referred to as “embedded”.
Including these workers in total cultural employment raises the percentages as shown in the
second column of Table 3. These figures suggest a range of total cultural employment from
about 4% to almost 9% as a proportion of the total workforce in the countries under study.

Table 3. Characteristics of the cultural workforce: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, USA.
Cultural industry Total cultural “Embedded”
employment employment employment as
as proportion as proportion proportion of total
of total economy of total economy employment in
employment employment “specialist” occupations
(%) (%) (%)
Australia (2001) 3.6 5.2 51.0
Canada (2001) 13.4(a) 15.6(a) 50.0
New Zealand (2001) 4.1 5.8 59.9
UK (2001) 7.5 8.7 40.0
USA (2004) 3.8 4.6 57.5
Source: Calculated from data in Appendix Tables 1– 5.
Note: (a) These figures are anomalous because of the “Related Industries” group in the Canadian data.
Omitting this group gives percentages of 4.0 and 4.3 respectively.
 156 D. Throsby

The significance of the embedded workers is highlighted in the last column of the table, which
indicates that in most of the countries, the majority of cultural or creative workers work
outside the cultural industries. Note that the figure for the UK can be compared with an estimate
of 54% derived also for the year 2001 by Higgs et al. (2008, p. 4). This latter figure is based on
somewhat different definitions of creative industries and occupations from those used above.

Conclusions
This paper has examined the assumptions and structure of the concentric circles model of the cul-
tural industries. Empirical data from five countries are used to examine the model’s key charac-
teristic, the proposition that the cultural content of the output of the cultural industries declines as
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one moves outwards from the core. Since cultural content cannot be measured directly, the test is
based on using the proportion of creative inputs (i.e. labour) employed in production as a proxy.
Given the assumptions from which the model is derived, the results illustrate its validity as a
means of depicting the structural characteristics of the cultural industries.
Of course there is no “right” or “wrong” model of the cultural industries, simply a range of
alternative constructions based on different sets of assumptions and employing different mechan-
isms for putting the parts together. But the choice of a model by means of which to interpret the
structural characteristics of cultural production has important implications for the formulation of
cultural policy. For example, the estimated economic size of the cultural industries, measured in
terms of value added, contribution to GDP, levels of employment etc., will vary considerably
according to the model chosen, since different models include a different collection of industries
in the mix.12
The appeal of the concentric circles model lies in its emphasis on primary creative ideas as the
driving force that propels the cultural industries and that distinguishes them from other industries
in the economy. This basic characteristic helps to link economic and cultural analysis of the crea-
tive sector. In particular the model’s incorporation of the economic/cultural value distinction, and
the centrality it attributes to the creative arts, may serve to strengthen the cultural orientation of
cultural policy and to counteract a tendency towards interpreting cultural policy simply as an arm
of economic policy and nothing more.

Acknowledgements
With the usual caveat, I express my gratitude to Anita Zednik for research assistance, and to three anonymous
referees for constructive comments on an earlier version of the paper.

Notes
1. Nevertheless a broader agenda for cultural policy has been around for some time in the field of
development; see, for example, the Declaration arising from the World Conference on Cultural
Policies held in Mexico City in July – August 1982 (UNESCO, 1982).
2. For an application of this model to Australian data, see Gibson, Murphy, and Freestone (2002).
3. For a detailed discussion of the definition of cultural goods, see McCain (2006) and Throsby (2006).
4. Including aesthetics, philosophy, anthropology, art history, etc.; see the collection of essays in Hutter
and Throsby (2008).
5. As an illustration, the allocation of design to “Related Industries” could be contested. Some aspects of
design could be seen as a creative activity eligible for inclusion in the core of the model, whilst others
such as industrial design are essentially utilitarian rather than engaged in conveying cultural content. In
practice, the overall design industry, which embraces a wide range of fields, would seem best
 Cultural Trends 157

interpreted as being mainly involved with commercialisation, and hence is properly placed in the outer
layers of the concentric circles.
6. Note that the production and distribution of some cultural goods involves many more distinct stages,
and hence different industries, than this simple example suggests. For instance, the production and
distribution of music involves the live performance industry, the music publishing industry, the
recording industry, the broadcasting industry, etc., all of which are represented in the various layers
of the concentric circles model.
7. Caves (2000) uses the term “humdrum” inputs to describe the latter type of worker.
8. See also Markusen, Wassall, DeNatale, and Cohen (2008) for an analysis of arts and cultural
occupations in the US.
9. For a more detailed discussion see Throsby (2001b).
10. This figure and those in the next paragraph could be regarded as still broadly applicable at the present
time, assuming no significant shifts in the years since those to which the data relate.
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11. For example, inclusion of industry groups such as “Architectural and engineering activities and related
technical consultancy” raises the UK total significantly.
12. For example, the WIPO model mentioned in the Introduction above includes in its most extensive
version industries manufacturing hardware such as photocopiers and other equipment for distributing
copyright material, leading to very large estimates of the size of the creative sector.

References
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Appendix
Appendix Tables 1– 5 show the industry X occupation tabulations for the five countries included
in this study. These tables are condensed from the more comprehensive data contained in Throsby
and Zednik (2007), which also contains details of methodology, assumptions and sources. Note
that in Appendix Tables 1 – 5 the symbol ( ) indicates , 0.05.
Appendix Table 6 shows for all five countries the percentages of employment in each occu-
pational category to total employment for each layer of the concentric circles model. These
proportions are used to test the hypothesis concerning the structure of the model, as shown in
text Table 2.
Note that in all tables some totals do not sum exactly, owing to rounding errors.
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Table 1. Employment in cultural occupations and industries: Australia: 2001 (‘000).

Core Other core Wider Total Total
creative cultural cultural Related cultural non-cultural Total
Occupational group industries industries industries industries industries industries employment
Visual artists, craftspeople, etc. 4.0 3.8 1.5 0.8 10.1 11.9 22.0
Writers, editors 1.6 0.2 4.2 0.8 6.7 2.1 8.9
Musicians, composers, singers 6.0 0.3 0.1 0.2 6.6 10.8 17.4

Dancers, choreographers 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.4 4.4 4.8
Actors 1.2 0.4 0.6 0.2 2.4 2.9 5.3
Directors 0.2 1.4 1.2 0.2 3.0 0.8 3.9
Sub-total creative occupations 13.2 6.2 7.6 2.3 29.3 33.0 62.2
Designers, architects 0.6 0.8 2.9 31.1 35.4 30.7 66.1
Journalists, presenters 1.2 0.1 9.0 0.4 10.7 2.5 13.2
Producers 0.3 1.3 3.5 1.4 6.5 0.9 7.3
Librarians, curators, administrators 0.3 7.0 3.4 14.1 24.7 18.9 43.5
Technicians 0.4 3.8 7.0 1.4 12.6 34.5 47.1
Support personnel 0.2 2.9 4.2 0.8 8.2 12.2 20.4
Sub-total other cultural occupations 3.0 15.9 29.9 49.2 98.0 99.6 197.6
Total cultural occupations 16.2 22.1 37.5 51.4 127.3 132.6 259.8
Total non-cultural occupations 3.9 13.9 43.9 110.2 171.9 7,866.8 8,038.7
Total employment 20.2 36.0 81.4 161.6 299.2 7,999.3 8,298.5

Cultural Trends
Source: Calculated from data in Australian Bureau of Statistics (2001), Employment in Culture, Australia (Cat. no. 6273.0).

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Table 2. Employment in cultural occupations and industries: Canada: 2001 (‘000).

Core Other core Wider Total Total
creative cultural cultural Related cultural non-cultural Total
Occupational group industries industries industries industries industries industries employment
Visual artists, craftspeople, etc. 6.1 4.6 1.1 3.0 14.7 8.7 23.5

Writers, editors 3.0 7.4 3.3 13.7 4.0 17.7

Musicians, composers, singers 3.4 0.3 0.4 4.1 2.5 6.6
  
Dancers, choreographers 0.2 0.2 0.9 1.2
 
Actors 1.5 0.2 1.8 0.5 2.3

Directors 1.4 7.6 0.6 9.6 0.8 10.4
Sub-total creative occupations 15.7 4.6 16.7 7.3 44.2 17.4 61.7
Designers, architects 0.5 0.1 8.2 40.3 49.2 28.5 77.6
Journalists, presenters 1.8 0.3 10.6 5.5 18.2 10.0 28.3
Librarians, curators, administrators 2.0 2.1 17.9 24.9 46.9 104.4 151.3
Technicians 1.1 1.2 9.0 13.0 24.4 18.7 43.2
Support personnel 0.4 0.1 2.4 3.5 6.4 10.4 16.7
Sub-total other cultural occupations 6.0 3.8 48.1 87.2 145.1 172.0 317.1
Total cultural occupations 21.6 8.4 64.8 94.5 189.4 189.4 378.8
Total non-cultural occupations 12.0 9.4 228.8 722.2 972.5 7,334.0 8,306.4
Total employment 33.6 17.9 293.7 816.8 1,161.8 7,523.4 8,685.2
Source: Calculated from data in Statistics Canada (2001), 2001 Census, Canada’s Workforce: Paid Work. (Cat. no. 9F0012XCB2001049).
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Table 3. Employment in cultural occupations and industries: New Zealand: 2001 (‘000).
Core Other core Wider Total Total
creative cultural cultural Related cultural non-cultural Total
Occupational group industries industries industries industries industries industries employment
Visual artists, craftspeople, etc. 0.6 0.9 0.2 0.2 1.9 2.2 4.1
Writers, editors 0.4 0.1 1.0 0.2 1.7 1.2 2.9
 
Musicians, composers, singers 0.6 0.1 0.8 3.0 3.8
  
Dancers, choreographers 0.1 0.1 0.6 0.7

Actors 0.4 0.3 0.1 0.8 0.6 1.4
Directors 0.1 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.8 0.2 1.0
Sub-total creative occupations 2.2 1.8 1.5 0.6 6.1 7.8 13.9
Designers, architects 0.1 0.2 0.5 4.5 5.4 5.4 10.7
Journalists, presenters 0.2 0.1 2.5 0.1 2.8 0.8 3.6
Librarians, curators, administrators 0.1 3.2 0.6 0.2 4.1 5.0 9.1
 
Technicians 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.5

Support personnel 0.6 0.6 0.6 1.8 11.0 12.8
Sub-total other cultural occupations 0.4 4.2 4.2 5.4 14.3 22.4 36.7
Total cultural occupations 2.7 6.0 5.7 6.0 20.4 30.3 50.6
Total non-cultural occupations 1.5 4.4 21.4 22.9 49.9 1,626.7 1,676.6
Total employment 4.1 10.3 27.0 28.9 70.3 1,657.0 1,727.2

Cultural Trends
Source: Calculated from data in Statistics New Zealand (2001), 2001 Census of Population and Dwellings (MB2001), commissioned table.

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Table 4. Employment in cultural occupations and industries: UK: 2001 (‘000).

Core Other core Wider Total Total
creative cultural cultural Related cultural non-cultural Total
Occupational group industries industries industries industries industries industries employment
Visual artists, craftspeople, etc. 8.9 5.0 28.4 6.3 48.5 87.3 135.8
Writers 7.4 0.7 14.1 2.8 25.0 19.2 44.1
Musicians, composers, singers 14.2 0.3 1.7 0.5 16.7 10.2 26.9

Dancers, choreographers 2.2 0.4 0.2 2.8 4.2 7.0
Actors 19.8 0.7 3.1 0.6 24.2 8.9 33.1
Directors, producers 5.6 2.6 4.6 3.2 16.1 5.6 21.7
Sub-total creative occupations 58.0 23.2 38.4 13.6 133.3 135.3 268.6
Designers, architects 2.7 1.1 38.0 79.7 121.4 72.0 193.4
Journalists, presenters, editors 2.3 3.0 82.8 3.8 91.9 45.2 137.1
Librarians, curators, administrators 0.8 35.4 6.3 22.0 64.4 45.7 110.2
  
Technicians 1.8 1.9 1.2 3.2
Support personnel 0.4 1.6 64.3 2.5 68.8 21.6 90.4
Sub-total other cultural occupations 6.2 42.9 191.4 107.9 348.4 185.8 534.2
Total cultural occupations 64.2 66.2 229.8 121.6 481.7 321.1 802.9
Total non-cultural occupations 74.8 103.2 669.9 665.6 1,513.5 24,259.4 25,772.9
Total employment 139.0 169.3 899.7 787.2 1,995.3 24,580.5 26,575.8
Source: Calculated from data in Office for National Statistics (2001), 2001 Census, Table C0417, Crown Copyright 2004.
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Table 5. Employment in cultural occupations and industries: USA: 2004 (‘000).

Core Other core Wider Total Total
creative cultural cultural Related cultural non-cultural Total
Occupational group industries industries industries industries industries industries employment
Visual artists, craftspeople, etc. 4.9 44.6 11.0 10.0 70.4 32.9 103.4
Writers 2.4 5.7 75.1 11.1 94.3 45.8 140.1
Musicians, composers, singers 32.9 2.2 0.4 10.4 45.9 15.9 61.8
 
Dancers, choreographers 5.8 0.4 6.1 25.7 31.8

Actors 17.3 80.8 0.2 98.3 29.4 127.7
Directors, producers 7.3 18.5 28.5 16.4 70.7 15.8 86.5
Sub-total creative occupations 70.5 152.2 115.2 47.9 385.8 165.6 551.4
Designers, architects 3.4 6.9 44.8 184.4 239.5 220.2 459.7
Journalists, presenters, editors 6.4 9.7 103.9 31.9 151.8 178.2 330.0
Librarians, curators, administrators 5.9 77.8 7.3 8.3 99.2 223.8 323.1
Technicians 4.3 27.4 35.1 5.5 72.2 177.5 249.7
Support personnel 1.9 29.5 39.6 3.1 74.1 165.9 240.0
Sub-total other cultural occupations 21.9 151.4 230.6 233.1 636.9 965.6 1,602.6
Total cultural occupations 92.4 303.6 345.8 281.0 1,022.7 1,131.2 2,153.9
Total non-cultural occupations 73.5 414.2 1,332.1 2,002.9 3,822.6 123,170.2 126,992.8
Total employment 165.9 717.7 1,677.9 2,283.9 4,845.4 124,301.4 129,146.8
Source: Calculated from data in Bureau of Labor Statistics (2004), November 2004 National Industry-Specific Occupational Employment and Wages

Cultural Trends
Estimates.

163
 Table 6. Employment in creative/cultural occupations as a percentage of total employment in cultural industry groups: Australia (2001), Canada (2001), New

164
Zealand (2001), UK (2001), USA (2004) (%).

D. Throsby
Core Other core Wider Total Total
creative cultural cultural Related cultural non-cultural Total
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industries industries industries industries industries industries employment

AUSTRALIA
Creative occupations 65.3 17.5 9.3 1.4 9.8 0.4 0.7
Other cultural occupations 14.8 43.8 36.7 30.4 32.8 1.2 2.4
Total cultural 80.2 61.3 46.1 31.8 42.5 1.7 3.1
Non-cultural 19.8 38.6 53.9 68.2 57.5 98.3 96.9
Total employment 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
CANADA
Creative occupations 46.4 25.7 5.7 0.8 3.8 0.2 0.7
Other cultural occupations 17.9 21.2 16.4 10.7 12.5 2.3 3.7
Total cultural 64.3 46.9 22.1 11.6 16.3 2.5 4.4
Non-cultural 35.7 53.1 77.9 88.4 83.7 97.5 95.6
Total employment 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
NEW ZEALAND
Creative occupations 56.1 17.5 5.6 2.1 8.7 0.5 0.8
Other cultural occupations 9.8 40.8 15.6 18.7 20.3 1.4 2.1
Total cultural 65.9 58.3 21.1 20.8 29.0 1.8 2.9
Non-cultural 34.1 41.7 78.9 79.2 71.0 98.2 97.1
Total employment 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
UK
Creative occupations 41.7 13.7 4.3 1.7 6.7 0.6 1.0
Other cultural occupations 4.5 25.3 21.3 13.7 17.5 0.8 2.0
Total cultural 46.2 39.1 25.5 15.4 24.1 1.3 3.0
Non-cultural 53.8 60.9 74.5 84.6 75.9 98.7 97.0
Total employment 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
USA
Creative occupations 42.5 21.2 6.9 2.1 8.0 0.1 0.4
Other cultural occupations 13.2 21.1 13.7 10.2 13.1 0.8 1.2
Total cultural 55.7 42.3 20.6 12.3 21.1 0.9 1.7
Non-cultural 44.3 57.7 79.4 87.7 78.9 99.1 98.3
Total employment 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
Source: Calculated from data in Appendix Tables 1 –5.