Freelancers in the arts hit the instability jackpot. They enter a market with no money and ask for the scraps, billing for what the organisation can afford, not what the job is worth. Unlike employees, they’re never paid for the in-between times; they sometimes lose money in preparing for and delivering jobs, which employees don’t. And it’s probably the only industry in which taking on a PhD just to live off an associated scholarship – which one respondent to the ArtsPay survey reported doing – is an understandable career choice. – Arts Professional