As Australia continues to experience the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and looks to economic recovery, the arts and entertainment sector should be a key target for economic support.

The arts and entertainment sector employs an even mix of women and men, and employs many more people per million dollars of turnover than industries like building construction, coal mining and oil and gas extraction. Relative to turnover, arts and entertainment employs nine times as many people as coal mining does, including five times as many men and 34 times as many women.

The arts and entertainment sector identified by the Australia Institute consists of seven sub-industries across two Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) industry categories: Arts and Recreation and Information Media. This paper calculates the gender and employment implications were turnover in these sub-industries to increase.