On Measuring Segregation in a Multigroup Context: Standardized Versus Unstandardized Indices

Coral del Rio Otero and Olga Alonso-Villar

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2022, vol. 163, issue 2, No 6, 633-659

Abstract: Abstract There has been little discussion about the consequences of using standardized, rather than unstandardized, segregation measures when comparing societies with different demographic compositions. This paper explores standardization in a multigroup setting through an analytical framework that offers a clear distinction between the measurement of overall and local segregation, embeds existing indices within this framework, and addresses gaps in previous research. The local approach developed here allows us to focus on the principle of transfers used in the measurement of overall segregation from a new angle and brings analytical support to the interpretation of the components of standardized overall measures as the segregation levels of the groups involved. This approach also helps clarify the debate around the measurement of school segregation since the distinction between local and overall measures, together with standardization, is key to understanding the different proposals that have been used in empirical studies. This research also gives formal support to empirical strategies that compare the distribution of a minority group with that of the remaining population since they can be viewed as standardized local segregation measures satisfying basic properties.

Keywords: Multigroup segregation; Standardized segregation indices; Local segregation curves; Local segregation indices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 J15 J16 J71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-022-02911-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
Working Paper: On Measuring Segregation in a Multigroup Context: Standardized Versus Unstandardized Indices (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:soinre:v:163:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-022-02911-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-022-02911-y

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().