The political economy of gender disparity in musical markets

This paper examines the role and functioning of women within the music industry from a broadly economic perspective which starts from standard notions of biological differences and theories of discrimination. Disparities in employment as a musician and output as a composer are considered. It is clear that female representation deviates considerably from parity. While conscious discrimination at the point of trade seems not to be a large factor in this, unconscious discrimination in early musical capital investment sets in motion a chain of events which limit female performance in musical markets.