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Activity Number: 138
Type: Contributed
Date/Time: Monday, August 1, 2016 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
Sponsor: Social Statistics Section
Abstract #319446 View Presentation
Title: Metrics and Tests for Measuring Segregation
Author(s): Stephanie Zimmer* and Marcus Berzofsky
Companies: RTI International and RTI International
Keywords: segregation ; diversity ; measurement ; law enforcement ; police
Abstract:

Segregation and diversity of communities is an important topic in the United States with many metrics to measure both segregation and diversity. We compare and contrast metrics used for measuring segregation and diversity. The index of dissimilarity compares the composition of neighborhoods to the larger area where a community is integrated if all the neighborhoods are similar to the larger community. Another metric measures the isolation of each group where high isolation is associated with segregation. We develop statistical tests for the metrics to test whether a community is segregated considering under the null hypothesis that people live in neighborhoods randomly, that is, people do not consider race when deciding where to live. This methodology is applied to large cities in the United States to rank their segregation using American Community Survey data. Using existing methods for testing the equivalence of distributions, we test whether the racial distribution of citizens is different from the law enforcement agencies using data from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics Survey in large cities and explore whether this is correlated with segregation.


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