Amajority-minority orminority-majority area is a term used to refer to asubdivision in which one or moreracial, ethnic, and/or religious minorities (relative to the whole country's population) make up a majority of the local population.
The exact terminology used differs from place to place and language to language. In many large, contiguous countries likeChina or theUnited Kingdom, a minority population (for the whole state) is often the majority in a subdivision. For example,Tibetan people are the majority in theTibet Autonomous Region andScottish people are the majority inScotland. The demographics in these regions are generally the result of historical population distributions, not because of recent immigration or recent differences in birth and fertility rates between various groups. As a result, it is rare for a Chineseautonomous region or a Britishhome nation to be described as 'majority minority', even though they would fit the definition.
Majority minority areas exist in two main forms. One form is when a homogeneous grouping residing within an area make up a majority of the local population. This grouping would otherwise be a minority in the broader jurisdiction. The other type occurs when several disparate groupings, when counted together, form a percentage-share majority of the local population, outnumbering the historically dominant group as a composite of diverse minority groups.[1]
Whether distinctions between groups are religious, ethnic, linguistic or racial; these different forms of majority-minority scenarios, or areas, tend to contribute towards different socio-political and cultural environments. For example, a study of the 2006European Social Survey found that people of localized majority-minority status across 21EU countries were more supportive of stronger politicalEuropean integration than existing national native majorities,[2] and a 2019Pew Research Center study found that 46 percent ofwhite Americans believed national majority-minority demography would negatively impactAmerican culture.[3]
There has also been study on groupings said to have 'old' and 'new' majority-minority status in specific areas. In research funded by the EU'sFramework Programmes, a 2015 study explored this difference, finding that, for example,ethnic Austrians living inSouth Tyrol manifest a culture which tends to obligeethnic Italians to learn theGerman language for advancement in the province, such as access to the administration of local government. This was contrasted with 'new' immigration-derived majority-minority populaces in Europe.[4]
In the United States, the vast majority ofAfrican Americans andHispanic and Latino Americans attend schools wherewhite Americans are in the minority.[5] 2006 research fromThe Civil Rights Project found that, on average, white students attend schools that are 78% white, while black and Hispanic students attend schools which are 29% white. A study on this suggested that; "This data is important because "majority minority" schools have the worst facilities (buildings, labs, libraries, athletic facilities), the least qualified teachers, the worst overcrowding, and the least financial support."[6] In regards to racial classification at a national level,public schools in the US obtained majority minority status in 2014.[7] At the university level,Harvard University's first case of a majority-minorityfreshman class was reported in 2017.[8]
In theNetherlands, majority-minority schools emerged in the post-war period, starting as a phenomenon inAmsterdam withimmigration from Suriname andfrom Curaçao, right afterWorld War II. In the 1970 and 80s, second-generationblack Dutch students with ancestry from theNetherlands Antilles, were joined in classes by the children of workersemigrating from Turkey andMorocco, creatingethnic Dutch minorities in some schools within the country's capital.[9] In a 2020 study of school classes in European cities, research onTurks in Austria andBelgium found that "a 'majority minority' school environment may empower minority group members so that relative numbers would protect them from becoming the target of discrimination."[10]
Many cities inNorth America have majority-minority scenarios (based upon racial classifications in theUS census and thecensus in Canada).[11] Since the late 20th century, areas of Northern andWestern Europe have been undergoing demographic transformation resulting in majority minority cities.[12] A 2018 study inFrontiers in Psychology analyzed:[13]
In the United States and Canada racial minorities already comprise a larger share of the population than Whites in dozens of major cities (e.g.,Vancouver andNew York). These cities have been dubbed majority-minority areas—or places where the racial/ethnic majority comprise less than half the population (Frey, 2011; Jedwab, 2016). Western Europe is also becoming more diverse, albeit more slowly (Browne, 2000).London, England is one of the few major European cities that has been designated a majority–minority area.
Based upon the UK'sOffice for National Statistics racial or ethnic categorization, demographic research suggests thatLeicester andBirmingham will each join London in majority minority status in the 2020s.[14][15]University of Antwerp's professor Dirk Geldof, writing in 2016, noted that "within a matter of years,Antwerp will also become a majority-minority city, as will many otherEuropean cities."[16] Aneducation inclusion project atHague University published that; "In superdiverse cities likeParis,The Hague andBrussels there is no majority anymore. These are so-called majority minority cities".[17] According to a study at theEuropean Commission's research repositoryCORDIS:[18]
In cities likeAmsterdam, now only one in three youngsters under age fifteen is of native descent. This situation, referred to as a majority-minority context, is a new phenomenon in Western Europe and it presents itself as one of the most important societal and psychological transformations of our time.
In the course of two generations places inNorthwestern Europe, such asAmsterdam andBrussels, have become majority minority, withethnic Dutch,Flemings andWalloons, respectively, representing less than 50 percent of the population of the capitals.[9]
In 2010, theBBC reported that "America's two largest states -California andTexas - became "majority-minority" states (with an overall minority population outnumbering the white majority) in 1998 and 2004 respectively."[19] DemographersDudley L. Poston Jr. andRogelio Sáenz have noted how "nonwhites account for more than half of the populations ofHawaii, theDistrict of Columbia, California,New Mexico, Texas andNevada. In the next 10 to 15 years, these half-dozen “majority-minority” states will likely be joined by as many as eight other states where whites now make up less than 60 percent of the population."[20]
In Europe, various national medias report on the social situation in the French suburbs with regards to disproportionate poverty and unrest. Known asbanlieues, these outer-city regions across France are often majority-minority areas, in terms of race or ethnicity in relation to theethnic French.[21]
The meaning of "majority-minority" or "minority-majority", in relation to a whole country, is not well defined and may not be consistent between different users of the terms. A multitude of scholars have designated countries, or sovereign states, particularly in the developed orWestern world, which are projected to obtain majority-minority demography between 2040 and 2050. This includes the United States, Canada and New Zealand, withAustralia, and nations inWestern Europe, estimated to follow this trend toward the end of the century.[11][20] In this usage, "majority-minority" usually means that a previously majority group becomes a plurality group, less than 50% of the population but still larger than any other group. Occasionally, it may mean a change of the majority group, with the previously majority group becoming a minority group and a previously minority group becoming the new majority group.
This will not be the first time that the status of majority ethnic group has changed in these countries: it is estimated that Australia became a "majority-minority" country in the 1840s, when arriving Europeans first outnumberedIndigenous Australians.[22][23] New Zealand became "majority-minority" slightly later, with non-Māori first outnumbering the Māori population around 1858.[24]David Coleman has studied a similar statistical projection in Britain. Coleman, a professor of demography at theUniversity of Oxford, estimates that by 2060the United Kingdom will reach majority-minority status (where the "white British" ethnic group is taken to be the current "majority", excluding "white Irish", "other white" and "mixed" groups).[14][15]
In thedeveloping world, the South American nation ofBrazil has been described as a majority-minority country. This is with regards towhite Brazilians being the historically largest group, and while remaining culturally dominant, have since become a national minority.[25]
There are multiple axis points of difference, and distinction, between groupings of people that can contribute towards the attribution of majority-minority status upon a particular area or within a societal scenario. With cultural, linguistic or religious differences, there is usually a corresponding difference in ethnicity, whether related in a central or peripheral way, to said distinctions. For instance, there are examples of this throughoutEurope. Where racial distinctions are made, this is most often in relation towhite people, and most usually inEuropean nations or nations derived fromEuropean colonialism, such as Brazil or the United States. Other countries, such as Australia, do not collect statistics based on racial categories such as "white people" or "black people", preferring to categorise ancestries by reference to self-identified country of ancestral origin, such as "English", "German" or "Australian".[26]
Where religion does not significantly influence designations of majority minority labels, certain cultural and linguistic differences may be emphasized in that particular society, such as inSouth Tyrol. Whereas the majority of residents in thenorthern Italian province areethnic Austrians and speak theGerman language (in comparison with theItalian-speakingethnic Italian majority of the broader nation), the population's adherence toRoman Catholicism is similar to the rest of the country.[27]
Kosovo has a history of being a majority-minority area via the historic borders ofSerbia in the 20th century, and prior to its independence declaration. While this phenomenon may predominantly be observed to be ethnicity-based (upon distinctions between ethnicAlbanians andethnic Serbs), contributing factors involve theIslamic religiosity of Albanians andChristianity of Serbians, as well as the ethno-linguistic considerations of theAlbanian language andSerbian language.[28]
When majority minority status is designated or predicted in terms of racial groups, many scholarly and journalistic works make this distinction with reference towhite people.[29] Based upon nation-based racial classifications, academicsEric Kaufmann andMatthew Goodwin have suggested that white people will be minorities in the United States, Canada and New Zealand, in what they define as "the ‘majority-minority’ point", by approximately 2050.[30]
While majority-minority status for Catholics in areas of Northern Ireland, in contrast with historical Protestant majorities across the territory as a whole, can be described to be based on religion; there are ethno-linguistic factors (such asIrish-speaking Catholics andEnglish-speaking Protestants), as well as broader overlapping factors of ethnicity (CatholicGaels and Protestant people of mainlyEnglish,Scottish andHuguenot descent) which can contribute toward religiously defined majority minority attribution.[31]
Albania
•Macedonians are a minority inPustec, whileGreeks comprise a majority inFiniq andDropull.[55]
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Majority-minority municipalities by province, and percentage of non-European population:[89]
British Columbia
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Manitoba
Ontario
Quebec
In the United States of America,majority-minority area orminority-majority area is a term describing aU.S. state or jurisdiction whose population is composed of less than 50%non-Hispanic whites.White Hispanic and Latino Americans are excluded in many definitions. Racial data is derived from self-identification questions on theU.S. census and onU.S. Census Bureau estimates. (SeeRace and ethnicity in the United States census). The term is often used invoting rights law to designate voting districts which are altered under theVoting Rights Act to enable ethnic or language minorities "the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice."[90] In that context, the term is first used by theSupreme Court in 1977.[91] The Court had previously used the term in employment discrimination and labor relations cases.[92]
It is estimated that Europeans first outnumberedIndigenous Australians in Australia in the 1840s.[22][23] There are still a number of rural and regional towns and communities where Indigenous Australians outnumber Europeans, but nationally Indigenous Australians constitute only 3.3% of the population. The state-level jurisdiction with the highest proportion of Indigenous Australians is theNorthern Territory, where people of Indigenous ancestry make up 30.3% of the population, the largest single ethnic group by reported ancestry (although a smaller proportion, 25.5%,identify as Indigenous).[93]
Of the other ethnic groups in Australia, no single ethnic group constitutes a majority overall.English Australians make up the largest single ethnic group by ancestry, being reported by 36.1% of the population in the 2016 census. The next largest ancestry group is "Australian", at 33.5%.[94] As ancestry is self-reported and each person can nominate two ancestries (and through a separate question report whether they identify as Indigenous Australian), there is no certainty as to the ethnic make-up of the ancestry group who identify as "Australian". It is commonly speculated however that the majority of the "Australian" ancestry group have some ancestral origin from the British Isles, and as a result when people with ethnic origin in the British Isles are considered as a single group ("Anglo-Celtic Australians"), the numbers for the "Australian" ancestry group is added to that of the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish ethnic groups, as well as (sometimes)Manx Australians andCornish Australians. When "Anglo-Celtic" ethnic groups are considered together, they make up a majority of Australia's population overall (58% estimated in 2018[95]). When considered as one group,European Australians make up 57.2% of the population (including 46%North-West European and 11.2%Southern andEastern European).[96][97] (This figure excludes those who nominate their ancestry as simply "Australian", who are therefore categorised as part of theOceanian ancestry group.)[97]
Reflecting the diversity of ancestries at the national level, in most Australian towns and suburbs, no single ancestry group constitutes a majority of the population. In many places, if the "Australians" ancestry group is counted as part of an "Anglo-Celtic" ethnic group together with English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish Australians, this group constitutes a majority of the local population. However, in many other places, even when these ancestry groups are counted as one, there is no single majority ethnic group. It is rare for any non-Anglo-Celtic and non-Indigenous ethnic group to make up a majority in a suburb. For example, in the 2016 census, in the Sydney metropolitan area,Chinese people in the suburbsBurwood andHurstville made up just over 50% of the population (although reports of Chinese ancestry are less than 50% of all ancestries reported in the census in each suburb, as each person is permitted to nominate more than one ancestry).[98][99] However, by the 2021 census the Chinese-ancestry population in both suburbs had dropped below 50%.[100][101]Chinese Australians make up 5.6% of the national population, making them the fifth largest ancestry group overall (after the English, Australian, Scottish and Irish ancestry groups).[94]
Brazil has become a majority "non-White" country as of the 2010 census,[104] together with thefederative units ofEspírito Santo, theFederal District,Goiás, andMinas Gerais.
Those identifying as White declined to 47.7% (about 91 million people) in the 2010 census from 52.9% (about 93 million people) in 2000 in the entire country.[104] However, in Brazil, this is not simply a matter of origin and birthrate, but identity changes as well. The Black minority did not enlarge its representation in the population to more than 1.5% in the period, while it was mostly the growth in the number ofpardo people (~38% in 2000, 42.4% in 2010) that caused the demographic plurality of Brazil.
Afro-Colombians make up roughly about 10–12% of country's overall population, but make up a majority in many areas in theColombia's Pacific region,[105] especially inChocó Department, where they make up 80–90% of the population.[106]
The minority groups that carriedPresident Obama to victory yesterday by giving him 80% of their votes are on track to become a majority of the nation's population by 2050, according to projections by thePew Research Center.
By this test, then, for all five indicators of majority–minority status, that minority group members in the 21 EU countries are more supportive of stronger European unification than majority group members is far from just a random finding.
Almost half of white Americans say the USA becoming a majority nonwhite nation would "weaken American customs and values," a new Pew Research Center survey says.
Figure 1: Majority-Minority Relationship: An Asymmetrical Balance. ... members of the majority in areas inhabited by old minorities can sometimes be obliged to learn the minority language (for instance, inSouth Tyrol where the members of the Italian-speaking group living in South Tyrol are under the obligation to learn the minority language,German, at school and must provide evidence of the knowledge of the minority language if they want to obtain a post in thePublic Administration of the Province of South Tyrol), whereas the same obligation cannot be found, at least as far as Europe is concerned, in areas inhabited even largely by new minorities.
In the educational context, eighty percent of Latinos and seventy-four percent of African Americans attend majority-minority schools that receive far less funding than their majority-white schools.
At the national level, public schools became majority-minority in 2014.
Its incoming freshman class is, for the first time, majority non-white: 50.9% of the students come from minority groups, which include Native Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, Asian-Americans, African-Americans, and Pacific Islanders, according to new data released by the university. Harvard's new freshman class is majority minority.
International migration changed large West European cities dramatically. In only two generations' time, their ethnic make-up is turned upside down. Cities like Amsterdam and Brussels now are majority–minority cities: the old majority group became a minority. This new reality asks for an up-to-date perspective on assimilation and integration.
Whites are already a minority in most major cities ofNorth America. Together with New Zealand, North America is projected to be "majority minority" by 2050, with Western Europe andAustralia following suit later in the century.
This question has grown in salience as the politics of the United States and Western Europe react to the prospect of becoming Majority Minority states — where the native constituency of people, defined by race, ethnicity, and/or religion, loses its numerical advantage in the territory of a sovereign state.
Outside London, Leicester and the City of Birmingham are both expected to become "majority minority" some time in the 2020s.
But are we also looking into the actual integration of the receiving group of native 'white' descent in city contexts where they have become a numerical minority themselves? ... This situation, referred to as a majority-minority context, is a new phenomenon in Western Europe
Census Bureau projections show that the U.S. population will be "majority-minority" sometime between 2040 and 2050. Our research suggests that this will happen around 2044. Indeed, in 2020, there are projected to be more nonwhite children than white children in the U.S.
They are more or less young (but still rarely much over forty), what the press call "of immigrant background," and from the majority-minority banlieue suburbs.
Despite being a nation of immigrants, America's tip to a white minority has never occurred in its 237-year history and will be a first among the world's major post-industrial societies. Brazil, a developing nation, has crossed the threshold to "majority-minority" status; a few cities in France and England are near, if not past that point.
In this way, the minority-majority relationship in the territory of South Tyrol for the areas of decentralized authority is reversed in relation to the dominant majority-minority relations in the Italian state.
With rising immigration and declining birth rates, we are indeed witnessing a seismic shift in the ethnic and cultural makeup of many nations in the developed world. Racial and ethnic majorities are slowly transitioning toward minority-group status. In the United States, Canada, and parts of Europe,Whites may still comprise the single largest racial group, but their numbers are on the verge of shrinking below the combined populations of other ethnic groups.
The ethnic make-up of many western countries is changing, and in countries previously seen as having 'white' majorities that past predominance is declining. In the United States, Canada and New Zealand, the 'majority-minority' point will arrive around 2050, while inwestern Europe it is projected to occur towards the end of the century. Some commentators have asked if this change may lead to a growing reaction or 'white backlash'. All else being equal, we suggest that the answer may be yes.
Religion is belief in Almighty God that must be possessed by every human being. Religion can be divided into Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, Hu Khong Chu, and Other Religion.Muslim 207176162 (87.18%), Christian 16528513 (6.96), Catholic 6907873 (2.91), Hindu 4012116 (1.69), Buddhist 1703254 (0.72), Confucianism 117091 (0.05), Other 299617 (0.13), Not Stated 139582 (0.06), Not Asked 757118 (0.32), Total 237641326