Women in the arts are sending a clear message: the industry’s future depends on whether it can make careers sustainable.
Hardwiring Change: Buying Back Time, the second annual collaboration between Artnet and the Association of Women in the Arts (AWITA), uses responses from more than 2,000 participants to examine the structural pressures shaping women’s careers across the art world. The report’s findings point to a workforce under strain, with many respondents describing a mix of financial instability, administrative overload, and limited room for advancement.
The most urgent signal is retention. Nearly half of women ages 25 to 44 surveyed said they are considering leaving the arts within the next five years. Among women ages 35 to 44, the figure reaches 50.6 percent. That matters because this is the cohort most likely to move into leadership and help shape the next generation of hiring, mentoring, and institutional decision-making.
The report also shows how deeply those pressures are embedded. Around 76 percent of women ages 35 to 54 said they face structural barriers linked to gender, race, or class. Nearly half of full-time workers reported spending at least half of their working time on administrative tasks, a burden that can quietly erode both energy and ambition.
Technology appears in the report as both a symptom and a possible relief valve. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they use A.I. tools in their daily work, but 67.3 percent reported receiving no instruction on how to use them. That gap suggests an industry adopting new tools faster than it is building the training and policies needed to make them useful.
Across the survey, the same remedies surfaced repeatedly: fair pay, job security, mentorship, clearer promotion and growth structures, transparency in decision-making, and better systems to reduce administrative labor. Around 55 percent of respondents said fair pay and job security would most improve their ability to sustain a career in the arts.
The report does not frame these as abstract ideals. It presents them as practical conditions for keeping skilled workers in the field. For an industry that depends on expertise, relationships, and continuity, that distinction may prove decisive.
