Creative economy and employment quality in large urban areas in Spain

The impact of the economic crisis should act as an incentive to devise less vulnerable economic development models for Spanish cities. This study confirms that the impact of the creative economy, one of the most interesting initiatives in this context, remains very limited. Furthermore, microdata obtained from a sample of one million workers in Spain, published annually by the Social Security system, confirm that the sharp contrasts emerging in employment quality between sectors and regions, the processes of ‘precariousness of talent’ and labour dualization expressed through inequalities in the occupational structure are each becoming significant threats to viable economic development. For the creative economy to be an effective instrument for metropolitan regeneration, adapted to suit the specificities of particular urban development paths, an improved understanding of the inherent complexity of creative-economy employment relations is requiredThe authors would like to thank José Manuel Rojo (CSIC) and three anonymous referees for their constructive and useful comments. This research was financed by R&D&I Plan projects CSO2012-36170 and ECO2011-30323-C03-01, and by the National programme ‘Ramón y Cajal’ of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, in which Simón Sánchez-Moral takes part