External Differences and Internal Similarities

This paper analyzes change in cultural consumption profiles in Denmark over the period 1975-2004 along three dimensions: number of profiles; between-profile socioeconomic heterogeneity; and within-profile socioeconomic heterogeneity. Previous studies have considered the first and second aforementioned dimensions separately, but our analysis is the first to simultaneously consider all three together. We draw on ten cultural activities to capture qualitative and quantitative differences between cultural consumption profiles. We find four qualitatively different consumption profiles, among them an omnivore group which has increased in size from 7% in 1975 to 18% in 2004. We document considerable time-persistent socioeconomic differences between the consumption profiles with respect to individuals’ social class, income, and education. Finally, we find an increase in within-profile total cultural participation level over time but few within-profile socioeconomic differences in overall participation level. Our results suggest that individual socioeconomic characteristics principally explain between-profile and not within-profile differences in cultural consumption.