Recently, creative professions have become quite well paid. Photo: GettyImages
Rector of the Moscow Art and Industry Institute Alexey Egorov believes that this indicates that the economic situation has begun to improve, which is especially noticeable in the metropolis. “Creative industries are the fastest to react to the stabilization of the economy and are beginning to attract more people, including men,” he says. You can’t argue with that. If a person has a hard time earning enough for basic needs – food, clothing, medicine, paying mandatory bills – he has no time for entertainment. But as soon as there is more money, animators and professional photographers appear to organize family celebrations, beauty treatments and cultural leisure are introduced into everyday life.
“In addition, creative professions are increasingly perceived as prestigious and promising, which makes them attractive to men. The development of digital technologies and online platforms, which open up new opportunities for creative self-realization and earnings, also plays a role,” Egorov continues. And although the total number of employees working in the field of culture, sports, leisure and entertainment has decreased by 4% compared to 2023, 2024 has become the most massive year in the last four years in terms of men entering the creative industries.
The trend is reflected in the institute’s own statistics. “Three years ago, we still recorded a small outflow of young men from our faculties. Now we are noticing a growth in their interest in creative specialties. And if before we had 90-100 young people studying, which was 6-7% of the total number of students, then this year there are already 114,” Larisa Egorova, Vice-Rector for Development and Innovations and member of the Academic Council of the Moscow Art and Industry Institute, told RG. Most often, young men go to the graphic design faculty, but more and more people want to study costume design, media art and event design.
Holders of the latter specialty, which, by the way, is still considered new, usually design turnkey various mass events – weddings, corporate parties, exhibitions. They are responsible for everything – from decorating the hall and the color of the napkins on the tables to the prizes awarded to the participants of the event for competitions in the entertainment part of the banquet, and for the competitions themselves too. At the same time, an event designer is not an animator, he may not be present at the celebration at all, but he is the one who thinks through everything down to the smallest detail.
“Three or four years ago, only girls worked in this field. There was even an explanation for this: men’s brains work differently, they are not able to keep a thousand small details in their heads at once, like the color of napkins and the number of flowers in composite bouquets decorating tables. But now there are more and more guys,” shares event designer Kirill Lukhan. According to him, everything is explained simply: there are good salaries in this field. A novice certified engineer, Lukhan, received 50 thousand rubles a month. The salary of a novice event designer is at least three times more. And this is in an agency, since Kirill has not yet gained enough clients to start working for himself.
2024 was the year with the largest number of men entering the creative industries in the last four years
“I know of cases where a husband working at a major enterprise in a serious position went on maternity leave instead of his wife, who was getting eyelash extensions at a beauty salon. Because every month she brought in a salary several times higher than her husband’s. And in another family, the husband, a policeman, retired after years of service and became seriously interested in pedicures. And he doesn’t just treat heels and paint nails, but also paints feet with henna. There is a waiting list for him for six months, despite the hefty price tag,” says psychologist and psychotherapist Tatyana Khramova. She adds, however, that both men used her services – after all, gender stereotypes caught up with them. Although, if you delve into history, you can’t help but remember that in tsarist Russia, for example, only men were always hairdressers. Women were not allowed to work in this profession.
Khramova notes that there is another pattern. Creative directions are most often chosen by young men who were brought up in single-parent families. “The choice of profession is not genetically embedded in us, it is always the result of decisions supported by life circumstances. If a young man grew up in a family with his mother and grandmother, he simply does not have an example of choosing a purely male profession before his eyes,” she notes.
Source: rg.ru
