How musicians differ?: Employment status, careers and recruitment in the living arts sector in Belgium

International audienceThe work and careers of “ordinary” artistic workers (Perrenoud and Bois, 2017) are known to be highly fragmented and precarious (Menger, 1999). Prefiguring the “gig economy workers”, the musicians are known to deal with particularly degraded working conditions (Cloonan and Williamson, 2017). However, there are few analyses that compare systematically the working conditions of “ordinary” musicians to the ones of artist working in close sectors (as theater or dance) . Our communication aim to better understand the employment and working conditions differences between these worlds of art (Becker, 1984). We will use a large and representative sample (N= 54000) with information on the careers (employment status, contract terms, remuneration, etc.) of all artistic workers active in Belgium between 2005 and 2015. Comparing these information in three living art sectors (dance, music, theater) in Belgium, we will investigate how specific are the musicians working conditions and how they characterize musical workers activity in this particular context