OK, I will list the occupations of all the friends I can think of who are fans of folk music.

I'm retired from several office-type jobs. My wife is an elementary school teacher. One friend is a nearly full-time folksinger who does a little craft-making on the side. One is an occupational therapist in treatment center for delinquent teenagers. Two are chiropractors. One is a self-employed garden designer and builder. One has a couple of part-time jobs: she is a museum docent and a shop assistant.

I guess we're all middle-class and college-educated, but not "academics". As a matter of fact, in my last job, I worked at a university in a non-academic capacity, but I became acquainted with lots of professors. I can't recall any of them ever saying they were interested in folk music. There was an anthropology professor who loved Indonesian gamelan music. Does that count?