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news
21st May 2006
Segregation, innumeracy and malice
by Professor Danny Dorling, University of Sheffield
Public debate about segregation and integration is being distorted by flawed methods of analysis. Some interpretations of what official data show are means to shed less light on the subject and reinforce prejudices which have no foundation in reality.
People by ethnic group in Britain are become less segregated by area. Unfortunately not a lot of people know that. Doubly unfortunately a lot of people appear to think that it matters if this segregation which they think is happening is rising.
What is happening is that people are having children at the ages at which people normally having children and are dying at the ages that people normally die in Britain. Why should that result in the argument that segregation is rising? Well, if you have a group that are in general too young to be dying but the right age to have children that group will tend to grow in numbers where they live.
Some commentators have interpreted this as rising segregation. They have done this because the same numerical result would have occurred if new migrants had arrived in the same areas as new births, thus creating a larger community of that particular group. They often also assume that when a group gets larger it mixes less with other groups. Sadly, it is possible that they have convinced the majority of the population of this claim.
In fact the opposite has actually happened. Segregation as conventionally measured has fallen and where concentrations of minority groups have increased that has predominantly been due to births. Children and young people mix better than older adults.
Around April Fool’s day, 2006 a small group released a story to the media in Britain claiming that a poll they had commissioned from the polling organisation “YouGov” showed that “73% agreed (35% strongly) that Britain was becoming increasingly segregated…”.
The “question” that had been asked of the twenty hundred internet surfers that YouGov pay for their views was:
“I am concerned that British society is becoming increasingly racially segregated”
| Strongly agree |
| Agree |
| Neither agree nor disagree |
| Disagree |
| Strongly disagree |
Although the YouGov “question” is not a question, and it is leading, it is worth asking how, if this poll is in any way valid, almost three quarters of the population came to believe this to be the case?
The answer, I think is that a few commentators have not understood some very simple maths and themselves believed the story that segregation by ethnic group is rising prior to being made aware of the problems with the maths. Of course, there will always be some forms of segregation that are increasing and others that are falling and there is nothing inherently wrong or right about segregation. However it is worth knowing what the main measure of segregation is that has risen and how that rise can occur. The index that has risen is called the index of isolation. It is the chance of a person meeting another person of their group if they and that other person are chosen at random. To understand this requires a minimum of eight numbers and an example:
The example is of two time periods, two areas and two groups. The numbers are of people:
| 1980s |
White |
Black |
| North |
98 |
2 |
| South |
96 |
4 |
| 1990s |
White |
Black |
| North |
96 |
4 |
| South |
92 |
8 |
You have two hundred people, almost all of whom are white living in two places at two points in time. There were three black couples in the 1980s. One couple lives in the North, the other two in the South. Over ten years all three couples have two children each. They label their children black in the census like themselves. There are now 12 black people in the country rather than six. Meanwhile the aging White population, on aggregate, declines - conveniently in such a way that the maths is made easy. The traditional index of segregation remains stable for the Black group. At both points in time one in six of the black folk would have to move area (from south to north) to be evenly distributed. However the index of isolation doubles for the same Black group (and the very high index of isolation for the White group falls ever so slightly as is in case in with the UK).
All that these three couples have done is have children and because of that they are labelled by this index as having become more isolated.
In fact neither the traditional index nor the index of isolation (preferred by people who think segregation is rising) describes what has actually happened very well. Couples that form families and don't migrate tend to integrate (of all kinds). Hence by having children the stake of these three couples in their areas will have risen. Indices can be deceiving things. Innumeracy is an enormous problem in the current largely innumerate debate. But there is also a degree of malice at work as exemplified by the question that YouGov asked. Some people do not like to see any black people living in any areas of Britain – and especially dislike seeing them having children there.
Incidentally the rate of people reported as being least concerned in the YouGov survey was lowest amongst women, amongst people aged under 30 and, in England, lowest in London. Women and young people tend to be better educated - especially those aged under thirty living in London.
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