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Australian Bureau of Statistics

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The Australian Bureau of Statistics External Link

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released their publication Work in Selected Culture and Leisure Activities, April 2007 (cat. no. 6281.0) on the ABS website. It can be downloaded free-of-charge from the ABS website External Link.

Some highlights from the publication include:

  • In total, just over one in five people (22% or 3.5 million) aged 15 or older were involved in culture and leisure activities; this is up from 17% in 2004.
  • Overall more women (24%) than men (19%) worked in a culture and leisure field, but the rate of paid involvement was similar for both men and women (7%).
  • One-third of all people involved (30% or 1.1 million people) received some payment. The majority (66%) of these people reported that their involvement was part of their main job. People with relevant qualifications were more likely to be paid for their involvement (53%) than those without (22%).
  • Younger people (aged 15-24 years) were the most (25%) involved in culture and leisure activities while older people (aged 65 years and over) were the least (15%) involved.
  • The number of Australians involved in visual art activities has nearly doubled since 2004, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics today.
  • In 2004, there were around 790,000 people involved in visual art (painting, drawing, computer art, photography); by 2007 this had increased to over 1.4 million.
  • Other culture and leisure activities with high levels of involvement were craft activities (such as furniture-making and wood crafts, jewellery making, pottery and ceramics, glass crafts and textile crafts) with 960,000 people; writing (606,500), performing arts (506,300) and design (459,200).

Cultural Funding by Government, Australia, 2006-07 External Link (cat. no. 4183.0) shows that total government funding for cultural activities was $5.6 billion in 2006–07, a rise of 2.6% on last year. The federal government contributed one third ($1.9 billion) state and territory governments contributed $2.6 billion and local governments, $1.1 billion.