Artistic labor markets are puzzling. In most advanced countries, census data provide quite similar pictures about artists' earnings :
artists actually appear to get lower returns from their educational investments than is the case in other comparable occupations, to have more variable income across time and to experience huge income inequalities. Nevertheless artists are not deterred from entering such an occupation in growing numbers, nor is there as much withdrawal from artistic careers as would be expected.

Pierre-Michel Menger
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
Centre de Sociologie du Travail et des Arts