About the availability of the theatre: Prices, incomes, inequality

The basis of this empirical study was the results of the "First All-Russian Sociological Survey of Theater Spectators", which was attended by about 11 thousand respondents who answered the questionnaire regarding more than 80% of state and municipal theaters located in 178 cities of Russia, classified into eight groups sorted by their population. In the context of the same groups of cities, the data of the "Selective Observation of Population's Incomes and Participation in Social Programs, 2016" of the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) were used. Answering the corresponding question in the questionnaire, almost a quarter of the participants in the sociological survey indicated that, at their current income, the prices for tickets to the theater were unavailable or were of limited availability for them. It was shown that of the two main factors, determining solvent demand, theater tickets prices after the "May 2012 Decrees" had grown faster than the general level of consumer prices (inflation) and consumer income, having caused the revealed level of theater inaccessibility. The use of data on the distribution of the average wage of the selective observation of incomes, in the context of the indicated groups of cities, made it possible to answer the question of whether income inequality was related to the availability of theatrical goods. It was shown that a higher level of audience income was not a factor, determining the greater availability of theater as wealth, as well as the fact that with low incomes, the public accessibility to theatres was less. It was concluded that the hypothesis about the connection between income inequality and the availability of theatrical goods was invalid.