Talk:List of countries by ethnic and cultural diversity level

Work relies on collation of data from multiple sources
User Dbrodbeck raised the valid concern that this list appears to be based on the work of a single author. Here is my response:

The article that the list is based is a paper in the Journal of Economic Growth. The Journal of Economic Growth is a peer-reviewed journal, with one of the highest impact factors in the field of economics. The paper itself, although authored only by Dr. James Fearon, incorporates data from many different authors (please see the Sources section in the paper for a full list of data sources, paper can be found here: http://telematica.politicas.unam.mx/biblioteca/archivos/040107017.pdf). Also, the paper has been cited over 700 times since its publication in 2003 (http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=james+fearon+ethnic+diversity&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44). I dont think the paper can be considered Dr. Fearon's point of view, since he relied on so many different sources (which he references) and since his paper was peer reviewed. I am invariant under co-ordinate transformations (talk) 23:39, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Sorry I couldn't figure out how to edit the broken link for this (correct) reference to Alesino http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/alesina/files/fractionalization.pdf

Please fix and then remove from talk.58.175.86.54 (talk) 15:50, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

fractionation
If fractionation means the probability of two random people belonging to the same group, how can any country have a probability of 1? This would seem to mean that if a pair of twins were selected at age 1 they would somehow belong to different groups. Drewder (talk) 16:17, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Fractionalization means the probability of two random people belonging to different groups, not the same group. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SurakV (talk • contribs) 18:46, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

On page 205 of Fearon's article, the author highlights that he coded "only ethnic groups that make up over 1 percent of country population". PNG was made up of "several thousand separate communities, most with only a few hundred people". Thus, from the author's perspective, "by the ethnic fractionalization measure [...] PNG approximates a perfectly fractionalized state". The author considered PNG to be made up of zero ethnic groups (page 204). The author's fractionalization formula (page 208) sums the squares of the population shares of each group and subtracts the sum from one. Given there are zero groups, the result is a perfect fractionalization score of 1. --Mgwalker (talk) 05:42, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Alphabetization in the Second List
In the second list, the number is simply ranked by alphabetical order (because it's ranked by the number, which is in alphabetical order), which gives the misleading impression that Afghanistan is the most diverse country and Zimbabwe is the least. While it would be completely subjective of any individual editor to decide that the list should be ranked by Ethnic, Linguistic, or Religious Diversity, this is an issue, and it should be addressed. Perhaps the lists should be split, but that would drastically increase the length of the page. I do not have a solution, but this problem should be solved.

Also, the first list is just ranked by Ethnic Diversity, but Cultural Diversity is also included in the list. This should also be solved.

I do realize that there is a notice about this at the top of the page, but I think this issue could be too controversial for it to be changed by a single editor. JNeutrino (talk) 02:17, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Critique section?
It would be worth adding some criticism to this index/ranking. Clearly it has mistakes, and I am sure the appropriate authors writing about this index will point these out. How is Belgium or Switzerland ethnically far more diverse than it their neighbors? Multilingualism doesn't mean multiethnic society. Clearly flawed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.43.216 (talk) 11:11, 5 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Except Belgium's multilingual background is owed to the various ethnic groups living there. What I'm more curious about is how the United States has such a high religious fractionation considering nearly half of Americans follow Protestantism and the rest predominantly either follow Catholicism or are Atheist. Duchy2 (talk) 10:31, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Yugoslavia?
what century is this? 2600:1006:B198:3090:48D5:B520:9145:FD63 (talk) 22:16, 16 January 2024 (UTC)