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.

Washington city

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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*	--	159,178	27.83%
Black*	81.5	340,088	59.45%
American Indian*	60.9	1,274	0.22%
Asian*	30.9	15,039	2.63%
Native Hawaiian*	63.0	273	0.05%
Other*	50.7	1,670	0.29%
Two or More Races*	46.9	9,584	1.68%
White/Black*	51.9	1,449	0.25%
White/American Indian*	44.7	462	0.08%
White/Asian*	27.5	1,278	0.22%
White/Other*	42.4	1,209	0.21%
Other Combinations*	--	5,186	0.91%
Hispanic	60.4	44,953	7.86%
Total	--	572,059	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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