The new economics of sex work

GateUser-9ad11037 · 2026-03-20T11:31:48+00:00

Economists largely overlook sex work, with only 5% of academic research focused on its economic aspects despite its substantial size. The industry, particularly porn, generates significant revenue, yet remains underexplored in economic studies.

GateUser-9ad11037

2026-03-20 11:31:48

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.

That is a big omission for what is a large industry. Porn alone is thought to generate almost $100bn in revenues a year worldwide, twice as much as AI. OnlyFans, a subscription site known for X-rated content, hosts 4.6m creators, many of them in adult entertainment. It has 380m users who together spend over $7bn a year. Estimates from UNAIDS, a UN agency, put the share of the world’s women aged 15 and over engaged in “exchange of sexual services” at 0.6%. In sub-Saharan Africa, this rises to 1.3%.

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