Email: v.l.bain@qmul.ac.uk
Women's careers in the UK music industry; a multi-level exploration of the factors that impact career progression.
The UK Music Diversity Surveys (2016, 2018, 2020) have uncovered statistics demonstrating the dramatic lack of retention for women in their forties but there is no understanding of why this is occurring. The loss of talented and experienced women is a talent drain that costly for business yet is entirely preventable. For female musicians, the situation is even worse with women unable to start or sustain their careers compared to their male counterparts, making up a quarter of professional musicians (ONS, 2021) despite being nearly half of all music graduates in the past decade (Higher Education Statistics Authority, 2019).
This qualitative research will fill a gap in the careers literature with its focus on gender in the music industry. Rooted in feminist sociology, organisational, work and careers literature as well as cultural studies with an intersectional regard to the music industry acting as an inequality regime and the theoretical work of Joan Acker. It explores questions such as what are the career patterns for women working in music? What roles are women segregated into and why with what consequences? What are the structures in the music industry that cause women to leave their careers? And why is the music industry still so dominated by the stereotype of the male musician virtuoso and notions of genius?
1st Supervisor: Professor Ahu Tatli2nd Supervisor: Dr Elena Doldor
Vick has worked in the music industry for twenty-five years. For six years she was Chief Executive Officer of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers & Authors (the Ivors Academy) and is a Sheffield University BA (Music and Performing Arts) and Henley Business School MBA graduate. She is the author of an influential industry report Counting the Music Industry, and founder of The F-List directory of UK female musicians a not-for-profit organisation aimed at facilitating professional opportunities for women in music. Vick was enrolled into the Music Week Women in Music Awards Roll Of Honour and the BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour Music Industry Powerlist. Vick is also a director of the board of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, a music tech start-up called Delic and is a trustee of Parents & Carers in Performing Arts (PiPA).