The new economics of sex work

GateUser-9ad11037 · 2026-03-21T11:40:58+00:00

The essay discusses the lack of focus by economists on sex work compared to other disciplines. A book highlights that only a small fraction of academic research on sex work adopts an economic perspective, with most studies relating to biology, psychology, or law.

GateUser-9ad11037

2026-03-21 11:40:58

Abstract generation in progress

ECONOMISTS CLAIM to study markets in all their forms. But one, in particular, seems to make them blush: sex work. In a new book, “Sex Work by Numbers”, Stef Adriaenssens of KU Leuven, a university in Belgium, estimates that less than 5% of the 18,232 academic publications on the industry produced between 2000 and 2024 took an economic or business view. By comparison, 40% concerned biology or medicine, more than 25% related to psychology or psychiatry and almost 20% had to do with the law. A quick search for “sex work” or “prostitution” in the database of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a collection of working papers, generates just 178 results among 35,450 articles.

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