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 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*	--	1,099,188	29.75%
Black*	74.0	401,986	10.88%
American Indian*	51.5	8,897	0.24%
Asian*	48.6	364,850	9.87%
Native Hawaiian*	61.6	4,484	0.12%
Other*	46.7	9,065	0.25%
Two or More Races*	29.7	87,277	2.36%
White/Black*	42.0	7,531	0.20%
White/American Indian*	37.2	5,613	0.15%
White/Asian*	27.3	17,658	0.48%
White/Other*	38.8	30,773	0.83%
Other Combinations*	--	25,702	0.70%
Hispanic	67.1	1,719,073	46.53%
Total	--	3,694,820	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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