Art, Democracy, and Economics: Measuring the Arts’ Relationship to Civic Engagement

Abstract

Despite substantial government funding and public support for the arts in the United States, quantitative evidence of the benefits of arts participation is rarely addressed in debates over cultural policy. Advocates in recent decades have relied heavily—and sometimes successfully—on economic impact studies, the validity of which has been repeatedly questioned by economists. Meanwhile, America is in the midst of social, political, and economic stratification and has not yet agreed on tools to bridge those divides. Qualitative studies and anecdotal evidence indicate that one outcome of arts participation is prosocial attitudes, suggesting that the proliferation of the arts may be a tool to overcome differences across constituencies in the U.S. This research study uses data from the Current Population Survey and American Time Use Survey to quantify the association between participating in arts activities and participating in civic activities such as volunteering and voting, which are considered crucial to a healthy democracy. The findings include a positive, moderate association between participating in both types of activities, despite methodological limitations. Any amount of arts participation in the prior year is associated with a 4 percentage point increase in the likelihood of engaging in civic activities on any given day, the equivalent of nearly 15 additional days with some civic activity across a year. The study also found that for every additional type of arts activity an individual engaged in during the prior year, they spent an average of 9% more time on civic activities on any given day. In addition to these findings, this paper makes recommendations for future research on the relationship between civic and arts participation, policy implications should a causal association be found, and lays an empirical foundation for the arts as a tool for the promotion of democracy.

Keywords: arts, civic engagement, performing arts, visual arts, democracy, arts participation, cultural policy

JEL Classification: Z1, Z11, Z18