Culture

The aim of the national cultural statistics is to give feedback about the performance of Estonian culture and its subject areas and developments on the territory of Estonia. The main statistical developments of the cultural space outside Estonia are still lying ahead.

ESSnet Culture framework of cultural statistics that has been unified all over Europe serves as a basis for the developments of cultural statistics. Statistics Estonia regularly forwards cultural statistics besides Eurostat also to other international organisations. Cultural statistics also try to meet the domestic needs. Cultural strategies and development plans are based on statistical data, and the representatives of other subject areas related to culture also need cultural data.

In general, cultural statistics can be divided into institutional statistics, which are mainly forwarded by enterprises and organisations of the cultural sector, and the data of personal surveys, which are received by cultural modules of the personal surveys of Statistics Estonia from the population of Estonia and which are collected under the sub-area "Participation in cultural life".

Institutional statistics give feedback on financing, economic activity, activeness of creative activities and visits of cultural establishments. Personal surveys provide information on the activeness of persons’ consumption of culture, availability of culture, cultural preferences, expenditures on culture and employment in culture, but also on cultural hobbies and social activity related to them.

Cultural statistics are indirectly related also to other subject areas, such as welfare, public health, coherence of different population groups and economy outside the cultural sector.