CensusScope -- Segregation: Dissimilarity Indices

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	Exposure by Race
	Dissimilarity Indices

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CensusScope is a product of the Social Science Data Analysis Network.

Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA PMS

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SEGREGATION: DISSIMILARITY INDICES

The dissimilarity index measures the relative separation or integration of groups across all neighborhoods of a city or metropolitan area. If a city's white-black dissimilarity index were 65, that would mean that 65% of white people would need to move to another neighborhood to make whites and blacks evenly distributed across all neighborhoods.

Dissimilarity Indices
	Dissimilarity Index		Percent of
	With Whites*	Population**	Total Population
White*	--	2,959,614	31.09%
Black*	70.5	901,472	9.47%
American Indian*	48.4	25,609	0.27%
Asian*	51.8	1,124,569	11.81%
Native Hawaiian*	68.6	23,265	0.24%
Other*	46.1	19,935	0.21%
Two or More Races*	30.7	222,661	2.34%
White/Black*	44.6	19,427	0.20%
White/American Indian*	36.1	17,706	0.19%
White/Asian*	28.2	48,762	0.51%
White/Other*	45.1	70,109	0.74%
Other Combinations*	--	66,657	0.70%
Hispanic	64.4	4,242,213	44.56%
Total Population	--	9,519,338	100.00%

* Non-Hispanic only.

* When a group's population is small, its dissimilarity index may be high even if the group's members are evenly distributed throughout the area. Thus, when a group's population is less than 1,000, exercise caution in interpreting its dissimilarity indices.

Source: William H. Frey and Dowell Myers' analysis of Census 2000; and the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN).

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