Beyond Black and White: Metropolitan residential segregation in multi-ethnic America

Abstract

Whether greater racial and ethnic diversity in the United States is being accompanied by greater integration remains unclear. This analysis examines segregation in the multi-ethnic context over the 1980–2000 period by using the multi-race information theory index (H), which simultaneously takes the presence of many groups into account, and by also looking at the segregation of each group separately. Results indicate that segregation has been decreasing, mainly due to declines in African American segregation and White segregation with little change or slight increases in Asian and Hispanic segregation. Growing diversity was associated with increases in overall segregation, White segregation, Hispanic segregation, and Asian segregation, though strongly associated with declines in Black segregation. For Hispanics and Asians, it was the growth in Hispanic and Asian and Pacific Islander populations, respectively, that were associated with increases in segregation, suggesting that this population growth likely buttressed ethnic enclaves.