France's 37,000 prostitutes are costing the country to the tune of €1.6bn euros every year, according to a new study which aims to "reverse the myth that sex work generates sustained growth", reports Newsweek.
While prostitution in France brings in an estimated annual turnover of €3.2bn, with French sex workers making an average gross total of €87,700 a year, much of this sum is sent abroad, rather than filtering back through the French economy, according to the study funded by the European Commission.
The study, by Le Mouvement du Nid, which actively campaigns against prostitution, also claims that there is serious tax evasion on these earnings, totalling €853m a year, while the rest of the figure is made up by the indirect social costs associated with prostitution, such as imprisonment for pimping, health expenses and drug addiction.
The report authors state: "If the clients of prostitutes were to spend their money on any other activity, France would increase its tax revenues and save several hundred million euros each year from prostitute-related expenses."
In recent years, European economies have started to include the revenue generated by so-called "shadow economies" such as prostitution and illegal drugs, as part of new regulations introduced by the European Union to better estimate a country's GDP. But there appear to be few reports on how much the industry drains a nation's economy.
Prostitution added around £5.65bn (€7.8bn) to the UK economy in 2013, according to figures released by the Office of National Statistics last year, leading some commentators to suggest that UK prostitutes should be taxed.