The gender gap in music royalties

Jarvin Spin, Guido Jurriëns Piccoli and Emma Goede conducted research in collaboration with Buma/Stemra into the gender income gap in music royalties. This took place as part of the Rise Up programme. Using internal royalty data, they analysed to what extent differences in output, exposure, and ownership can explain the income disparities between male and female music creators.

The figures provided a clear picture: women earn significantly less than men. In total, female musicians receive only 7% of all royalties, and their average income per person is also considerably lower. A large part of this difference can be explained by productivity. On average, women register nearly half as many works: around 38 works compared to 72 works for men. Since royalty income is directly linked to the number of works, this explains a substantial part of the income gap.

However, this is not the whole story. When the students control for the number of registered works, women still earn about 19% less per work than men. This indicates a remaining gap that cannot be explained by productivity alone. The researchers suggest that this may be related to differences in exposure and ownership. It is possible that works by women are used less frequently, or that they hold smaller ownership shares in their work on average. Unfortunately, the available data did not allow this to be measured directly.

The gender income gap is therefore largely, but not entirely, explained by differences in output. To reduce this gap, it is not only important that women produce more music, but also that their work is better distributed, recognised, and fairly rewarded. The Rise Up! programme by Buma/Stemra shows that there is awareness and commitment, but that there is still a long way to go towards full equality in the music industry.