The demography of ethnic minorities

Abstract

Cultural—‘ethnic’—differences within national populations have recently become the focus of considerable academic and political debate. This paper considers their demographic significance and reviews some facts and theories on the demography of minorities.It cannot present a comprehensive theory of the demography of ethnic minorities. Such a theory must be part of a more general analysis of cultural effects on demographic variables—which so far is lacking in demography. Neither can it review exhaustively the facts of minority demography; they are not collected or made available in sufficient detail from many countries with minority or multiple nationalities. The aims of the paper are accordingly less ambitious: to consider the political and academic import of minority demographic differences, formulate questions that might usefully be asked about them, and present a few examples in detail.