The scale of dissimilarity: concepts, measurement and an application to socio-economic variation across England and Wales

Authors: Voas D.¹; Williamson P.¹

Source: Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Volume 25, Number 4, December 2000 , pp. 465-481(17)

Publisher: Royal Geographical Society

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Abstract:

The paper considers the scale – the measure, extent, and dimension – of uneven distributions in space for a wide range of census variables. While the traditional ‘index of dissimilarity’ is affected by random as well as social factors, a solution presented here allows the index to be calculated even for very small populations. Small areas across England and Wales tend to be fairly similar demographically but quite diverse on ethnic and socio-economic measures. Differences between areas become more noticeable as we move from districts, to wards, to enumeration districts, but the rate of differentiation depends heavily on the variables considered.

Keywords: England and Wales; census; dissimilarity; segregation; index; scale

Language: English

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 7ZT email: voas@liv.ac.uk, william@liv.ac.uk

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