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List of countries by ethnic and cultural diversity level

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List of countries by ethnic and cultural diversity level. List based on Fearon's analysis

This is a list of countries by ethnic and cultural diversity level, as per Fearon's analysis.

Methodology

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The lists are commonly used in economics literature to compare the levels of ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious fractionalization in different countries.[1][2]

Fractionalization is the probability that two individuals drawn randomly from the country's groups are not from the same group (ethnic, religious, or whatever the criterion is). In Fearon's analysis, only groups containing over one percent of the country's population were considered. This limit made Papua New Guinea an outlier; as none of its thousands of groups included more than one percent of the population, it was considered to have zero groups and thus have a perfect fractionalization score of 1.

The two lists have been described by Alesina and Ferrara as follows:[1]

Fearon[3] and Alesina et al.[4] have compiled various measures of ethnic heterogeneity which try to tackle the fact that the difference amongst groups manifests itself in different ways in different places. The two classifications are constructed differently. Alesina et al.[4] do not take a stand on what ethnicity (or language or religion) are more salient than others and adopt the country breakdown suggested by original sources, mainly the Encyclopædia Britannica. Fearon[3] instead is trying to construct the 'right list' of ethnic groups which 'depends on what people in the country identify as the most socially relevant ethnic groupings'. This approach has the advantage of being closer to what the theory would want and the disadvantage of having to make judgement calls (or adopt others' judgement calls) about what is the 'right list'.

List based on Fearon's analysis

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In the Fearon list, ethnic fractionalization is approximated by a measure of similarity between languages, varying from 1 = the population speaks two or more unrelated languages to 0 = the entire population speaks the same language.[3] This index of cultural diversity is biased towards linguistic variations as opposed to genetic diversity and other variations. It should also be noted that the date of collection for data regarding ethnicity varies drastically between countries from 1981 to 2001 while data for linguistic and religious fractionalisation was collected in 2001.[4]

Ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalization (2003)[4]
Country Ethnic
fractionalization
Linguistic
fractionalization
Religious
fractionalization
 Afghanistan 0.7693 0.6141 0.2717
 Albania 0.2204 0.0399 0.4719
 Algeria 0.3394 0.4427 0.0091
 American Samoa 0.0000 0.1733 0.6395
 Andorra 0.7139 0.6848 0.2326
 Angola 0.7867 0.7870 0.6276
 Antigua and Barbuda 0.1643 0.1063 0.6840
 Argentina 0.2550 0.0618 0.2236
 Armenia 0.1272 0.1291 0.4576
 Aruba 0.0000 0.3889 0.4107
 Australia 0.0929 0.3349 0.8211
 Austria 0.1068 0.1522 0.4146
 Azerbaijan 0.2047 0.2054 0.4899
 Bahamas 0.4228 0.1855 0.6815
 Bahrain 0.5021 0.4344 0.5528
 Bangladesh 0.0454 0.0925 0.2090
 Barbados 0.1423 0.0926 0.6934
 Belarus 0.3222 0.4666 0.6116
 Belgium 0.5554 0.5409 0.2127
 Belize 0.7015 0.6303 0.5813
 Benin 0.7872 0.7905 0.5544
 Bermuda 0.0000 0.0000 0.7112
 Bhutan 0.6050 0.6056 0.3787
 Bolivia 0.7396 0.2240 0.2085
 Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.6300 0.6751 0.6851
 Botswana 0.4102 0.4110 0.5986
 Brazil 0.5408 0.0468 0.6054
 Brunei 0.5416 0.3438 0.4404
 Bulgaria 0.4021 0.3031 0.5965
 Burkina Faso 0.7377 0.7228 0.5798
 Burundi 0.2951 0.2977 0.5158
 Cambodia 0.2105 0.2104 0.0965
 Cameroon 0.8635 0.8898 0.7338
 Canada 0.7124 0.5772 0.6958
 Cape Verde 0.4174 0.0000 0.0766
 Central African Republic 0.8295 0.8334 0.7916
 Chad 0.8620 0.8635 0.6411
 Chile 0.1861 0.1871 0.3841
 China 0.1538 0.1327 0.6643
 Colombia 0.6014 0.0193 0.1478
 Comoros 0.0000 0.0103 0.0137
 DR Congo 0.8747 0.8705 0.7021
 Congo 0.8747 0.6871 0.6642
 Costa Rica 0.2368 0.0489 0.2410
 Ivory Coast 0.8204 0.7842 0.7551
 Croatia 0.3690 0.0763 0.4447
 Cuba 0.5908 0.0000 0.5059
 Cyprus 0.0939 0.3962 0.3962
 Czech Republic 0.3222 0.3233 0.6591
 Denmark 0.0819 0.1049 0.2333
 Djibouti 0.7962 0.6558 0.0435
 Dominica 0.2003 0.0000 0.4628
 Dominican Republic 0.4294 0.0395 0.3118
 East Timor 0.0000 0.5261 0.4254
 Ecuador 0.6550 0.1308 0.1417
 Egypt 0.1836 0.0237 0.1979
 El Salvador 0.1978 0.0000 0.3559
 Equatorial Guinea 0.3467 0.3220 0.1195
 Eritrea 0.6524 0.6530 0.4253
 Estonia 0.5062 0.4944 0.4985
 Ethiopia 0.7235 0.8073 0.6249
 Faroe Islands 0.0000 0.0000 0.3147
 Fiji 0.5479 0.5479 0.5682
 Finland 0.1315 0.1412 0.2531
 France 0.1032 0.1221 0.4029
 French Guiana 0.0000 0.1154 0.4959
 French Polynesia 0.0000 0.6078 0.5813
 Gabon 0.7690 0.7821 0.6674
 Gambia 0.7864 0.8076 0.0970
 Gaza Strip 0.0000 0.0104 0.0342
 Georgia 0.4923 0.4749 0.6543
 Germany 0.1682 0.1642 0.6571
 Ghana 0.6733 0.6731 0.7987
 Greece 0.1576 0.0300 0.1530
 Greenland 0.0000 0.2188 0.4592
 Grenada 0.2661 0.0000 0.5898
 Guadeloupe 0.0000 0.0933 0.3069
 Guam 0.0000 0.7320 0.4082
 Guatemala 0.5122 0.4586 0.3753
 Guinea 0.7389 0.7725 0.2649
 Guinea-Bissau 0.8082 0.8141 0.6128
 Guyana 0.6195 0.0688 0.7876
 Haiti 0.0950 0.0000 0.4704
 Honduras 0.1867 0.0553 0.2357
 Hong Kong 0.0620 0.2128 0.4191
 Hungary 0.1522 0.0297 0.5244
 Iceland 0.0798 0.0820 0.1913
 India 0.4182 0.8069 0.3260
 Indonesia 0.7351 0.7680 0.2340
 Iran 0.6684 0.7462 0.1152
 Iraq 0.3689 0.3694 0.4844
 Ireland 0.1206 0.0312 0.1550
 Isle of Man 0.0000 0.0000 0.4729
 Israel 0.3436 0.5525 0.3469
 Italy 0.1145 0.1147 0.3027
 Jamaica 0.4129 0.1098 0.6160
 Japan 0.0119 0.0178 0.5406
 Jersey 0.0000 0.0000 0.5479
 Jordan 0.5926 0.0396 0.0659
 Kazakhstan 0.6171 0.6621 0.5898
 Kenya 0.8588 0.8860 0.7765
 Kiribati 0.0511 0.0237 0.5541
 South Korea 0.0020 0.0021 0.6604
 North Korea 0.0392 0.0028 0.4891
 Kyrgyzstan 0.6752 0.5949 0.4470
 Kuwait 0.6604 0.3444 0.6745
 Laos 0.5139 0.6382 0.5453
 Latvia 0.5867 0.5795 0.5556
 Lebanon 0.1314 0.1312 0.7886
 Lesotho 0.2550 0.2543 0.7211
 Liberia 0.9084 0.9038 0.4883
 Libya 0.7920 0.0758 0.0570
 Liechtenstein 0.5726 0.2246 0.3343
 Lithuania 0.3223 0.3219 0.4141
 Luxembourg 0.5302 0.6440 0.0911
 Macau 0.0000 0.2519 0.5511
 North Macedonia 0.5023 0.5021 0.5899
 Madagascar 0.8791 0.0204 0.5191
 Malawi 0.6744 0.6023 0.8192
 Malaysia 0.5880 0.5970 0.6657
 Mali 0.6906 0.8388 0.1820
 Malta 0.0414 0.0907 0.1223
 Marshall Islands 0.0603 0.0734 0.5207
 Martinique 0.0000 0.0000 0.2336
 Mauritania 0.6150 0.3260 0.0149
 Mauritius 0.4634 0.4547 0.6385
 Mayotte 0.0000 0.7212 0.0620
 Mexico 0.5418 0.1511 0.1796
 Micronesia 0.7005 0.7483 0.6469
 Moldova 0.5535 0.5533 0.5603
 Monaco 0.6838 0.7305 0.3047
 Mongolia 0.3682 0.3734 0.0799
 Morocco 0.4841 0.4683 0.0035
 Mozambique 0.6932 0.8125 0.6759
 Burma 0.5062 0.5072 0.1974
 Namibia 0.6329 0.7005 0.6626
 Nauru 0.5832 0.6161 0.6194
 Nepal 0.6632 0.7167 0.1417
 Netherlands Antilles 0.0000 0.2508 0.3866
 Netherlands 0.1054 0.5143 0.7222
 New Caledonia 0.0000 0.6633 0.5462
 New Zealand 0.3969 0.1657 0.8110
 Nicaragua 0.4844 0.0473 0.4290
 Niger 0.6518 0.6519 0.2013
 Nigeria 0.8505 0.8316 0.7421
 Northern Mariana Islands 0.0000 0.7754 0.4811
 Norway 0.0586 0.0673 0.2048
 Oman 0.4373 0.3567 0.4322
 Pakistan 0.7098 0.7190 0.3848
 Palau 0.4312 0.3157 0.7147
 Panama 0.5528 0.3873 0.3338
 Papua New Guinea 0.2718 0.3526 0.5523
 Paraguay 0.1689 0.5975 0.2123
 Peru 0.6566 0.3358 0.1988
 Philippines 0.2385 0.8360 0.3056
 Poland 0.1183 0.0468 0.1712
 Portugal 0.0468 0.0198 0.1438
 Puerto Rico 0.0000 0.0352 0.4952
 Qatar 0.7456 0.4800 0.0950
 Réunion 0.0000 0.1578 0.1952
 Romania 0.3069 0.1723 0.2373
 Russia 0.2452 0.2485 0.4398
 Rwanda 0.3238 0.0000 0.5066
 Saint Lucia 0.1769 0.3169 0.3320
 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 0.3066 0.0175 0.7028
 Western Samoa 0.1376 0.0111 0.7871
 San Marino 0.2927 0.0000 0.1975
 São Tomé and Príncipe 0.0000 0.2322 0.1866
 Saudi Arabia 0.1800 0.0949 0.1270
 Senegal 0.6939 0.7081 0.1497
 Serbia 0.5736 - -
 Seychelles 0.2025 0.1606 0.2323
 Sierra Leone 0.8191 0.7634 0.5395
 Singapore 0.3857 0.3835 0.6561
 Slovakia 0.2539 0.2551 0.5655
 Slovenia 0.2216 0.2201 0.2868
 Solomon Islands 0.1110 0.5254 0.6708
 Somalia 0.8117 0.0326 0.0028
 South Africa 0.7517 0.8652 0.8603
 Spain 0.4165 0.4132 0.4514
 Sri Lanka 0.4150 0.4645 0.4853
 Saint Kitts and Nevis 0.1842 - 0.6614
 Sudan 0.7147 0.7190 0.4307
 Suriname 0.7332 0.3310 0.7910
 Swaziland 0.0582 0.1722 0.4444
 Sweden 0.0600 0.1968 0.2342
 Switzerland 0.5314 0.5441 0.6083
 Syria 0.5399 0.1817 0.4310
 Taiwan 0.2744 0.5028 0.6845
 Tajikistan 0.5107 0.5473 0.3386
 Tanzania 0.7353 0.8983 0.6334
 Thailand 0.6338 0.6344 0.0994
 Togo 0.7099 0.8980 0.6596
 Tonga 0.0869 0.3782 0.6214
 Trinidad and Tobago 0.6475 0.1251 0.7936
 Tunisia 0.0394 0.0124 0.0104
 Turkey 0.3200 0.2216 0.0049
 Turkmenistan 0.3918 0.3984 0.2327
 Tuvalu 0.1629 0.1372 0.2524
 Uganda 0.9302 0.9227 0.6332
 Ukraine 0.4737 0.4741 0.6157
 United Arab Emirates 0.6252 0.4874 0.3310
 United Kingdom 0.1211 0.0532 0.6944
 United States 0.4901 0.5647 0.8241
 Uruguay 0.2504 0.0817 0.3548
 Uzbekistan 0.4125 0.4120 0.2133
 Vanuatu 0.0413 0.5794 0.7044
 Venezuela 0.4966 0.0686 0.1350
 Vietnam 0.2383 0.2377 0.5080
 U.S. Virgin Islands 0.0000 0.3140 0.6359
 West Bank 0.0000 0.1438 0.3095
 Yemen 0.0000 0.0080 0.0023
 Yugoslavia 0.8092 0.6064 0.5530
 Zambia 0.7808 0.8734 0.7359
 Zimbabwe 0.3874 0.4472 0.7363

References

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  1. ^ a b A. Alesina, E. Ferrara (2005). "Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance" (PDF). Journal of Economic Literature: 762–800. Retrieved December 15, 2016.
  2. ^ Natalka Patsiurko, John L. Campbell and John A. Hall (2012). "Measuring cultural diversity: ethnic, linguistic and religious fractionalization in the OECD" (PDF). Ethnic and Racial Studies. 35 (2): 195–217. doi:10.1080/01419870.2011.579136. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 25, 2012. Retrieved September 13, 2012.
  3. ^ a b c James Fearon (2003). "Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country". Journal of Economic Growth. 8: 188. doi:10.1023/A:1024419522867.
  4. ^ a b c d Alberto Alesina; et al. (2003). "Fractionalization". Journal of Economic Growth. 8: 184–189. doi:10.1023/a:1024471506938.