The Great Musical North

As part of the Martin Prosperity Institute’s ongoing effort to build combined US-Canada datasets, we compare the concentration of musicians and music firms at the national and city level. We find that Canada has a significantly higher presence of both musicians and the recording industry than the United States.

We’ve created combined US-Canada datasets for two variables:

• Musicians (self-reported) using the 2000 Census PUMS for the United States and the 20% sample of the 2001 Census for Canada. The definition includes:
  • Musicians, singers, and related workers
  • Music directors and composers
  • Musicians and singers

• Recording Industry is made up of “establishments primarily engaged in producing and distributing musical recordings, in publishing music, or in providing sound recording and related services”. It uses the 2000 County Business Patterns data for the United States and the 2001 Canadian Business Patterns data for Canada. The definition includes:
  • Integrated record production/distribution
  • Music publishers
  • Sound recording studios
  • Other sound recording industries

First let’s look at the nationwide numbers. We calculate per capita figures to make the two countries directly comparable:

Musicians per 100,000 population

Canada 100.3

US 60.4

Recording Industry per 100,000 population

Canada 4.8

US 1.13

At the national level, Canada reports a higher rate of self-reported musicians and a dramatically higher presence of recording industry establishments.

Next, we use the metropolitan area data to examine the differences between the big cities of the US and Canada. Seventy-six percent of North American musicians live in metros of over 500,000 people and 80% of recording industry establishments are located there, so that’s where we focus our attention.

To compare concentration, we use a metric called location quotient (LQ) that compares metro prevalence to national prevalence.

As you can see, large Canadian cities consistently show a higher presence of musicians and the recording industry. In the recording industry, the very largest cities New York and Los Angeles have a significantly larger industry presence than the rest of the US (with one very notable exception). In Canada, the same position at the head of the city system is occupied by Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.  This agglomeration of the recording industry in the very largest locations is something we’ve written about before.

Removing the extreme outlier (Nashville) from the plots lets us take a closer look at the rest of the results:

While the US more or less maintains a similar pattern for recording industry and musicians, Canada’s musician concentrations differ from its recording industry rankings. The graph above shows that Vancouver and Winnipeg have the highest concentrations, while Toronto and Montreal score similarly to cities like Edmonton and Calgary.

Comparing cities is interesting. But these numbers also ask a broader question: how can the consistently higher presence of musicians and the recording industry in Canada be explained? Is it greater government funding for the arts? A healthcare system that allows musicians to bear the risks of a career in music without losing their health insurance? Or is it something else?