Dzień dobry
Well now, here’s an interesting European test for popular academic theories about the migration of bright young gay people to cities, the links between thriving gay populations and a city’s ‘knowledge industries’ and the ‘creative class’. Because it’s said that most of the gay population of Poland is either packing its bags or has already moved to work in the UK (”dzień dobry”, people; welcome).
So there would seem to be a strong opportunity here to test, outside the U.S., if a large gay population is ‘just a marker’ of a tolerant and open society, with no actual cause-and-effect — or if the research from Richard Lippa (based on the apparently reliable BBC data set) that shows…
“across 53 countries, gay people are considerably more likely to be involved in creative employment pursuits than straight people”
…means there will be measurable effects from large-scale gay migration. Will we see the Polish creative industries discernably slump in both quality and economic weight as a direct result of the exodus? Will we see this influx into the UK turbocharge our creative industries in about five or six years, once their English skills are fluent, and if so — which parts of the creative industries will have benefited and why?
I’d imagine research could also provide an interesting riposte to Andrew Sullivan’s ideas about the decline of gaytivity, in respect of his perhaps overly U.S.-centric perspective on the subject.
It seems like now is the perfect time for some bright creative industries researchers to start sharpening their grant-writing pencils.
[...] Back to the prolific D’log, speculating on what effect the thousands of gay Poles currently fleeing persecution from their Catholic government will have on the creative industries in the UK given that, as he quotes, “gay people are considerably more likely to be involved in creative employment pursuits than straight people” and the effect this will have Poland’s own creative output. Dzień dobry, indeed! [...]
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