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.

Chicago 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*	--	907,166	31.32%
Black*	87.3	1,053,739	36.39%
American Indian*	63.5	4,253	0.15%
Asian*	51.9	124,437	4.30%
Native Hawaiian*	81.8	972	0.03%
Other*	64.8	4,331	0.15%
Two or More Races*	44.6	47,474	1.64%
White/Black*	63.7	5,267	0.18%
White/American Indian*	58.8	2,377	0.08%
White/Asian*	47.2	6,751	0.23%
White/Other*	54.2	19,138	0.66%
Other Combinations*	--	13,941	0.48%
Hispanic	61.4	753,644	26.02%
Total	--	2,896,016	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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