“Architects are prostitutes,” says the world’s renowned architectural modernist, Philip Johnson (1906 - 2005).
Much has been said and written about them. Despite the many similarities shared by these two oldest professions, which in so many ways resembles, they are indeed very different from one another, as far as their income is concerned.
And contrary to popular belief, a typical prostitute will always earn more than a typical architect. Unlikely you may think, but wait till you read what Steven D. Levitt, the Freakonomics expert, has to say about this:
” …when there are a lot of people willing and able to do a job, that job generally doesn’t pay well. This is one of four meaningful factors that determine a wage. The others are the specialized skills a job requires, the unpleasantness of a job, and the demand for services that the job fills.
The delicate balance between these factors helps explain why, for instance, the typical prostitute earns more than the typical architect. It may not seem as though she should. The architect would appear to be more skilled (as the word is usually defined) and better educated (again, as usually defined).
But little girls don’t grow up dreaming of becoming prostitutes, so the supply of potential prostitutes is relatively small. Their skills, while not necessarily “specialized”, are practiced in a very specialized context. The job is unpleasant and forbidding in at least two significant ways: the likelihood of violence and the lost opportunity of having a stable family life...
...As for demand? Let’s just say that an architect is more likely to hire a prostitute than vice versa.“
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