Minority-majority

A majority-minority or minority-majority area is a term used to refer to a subdivision in which one or more racial, ethnic, and/or religious minorities (relative to the whole country's population) make up a majority of the local population.

Terminology

The exact terminology used differs from place to place and language to language. In many large, contiguous countries like China, there are many autonomous regions where a minority population is the majority. 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.

Background

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.

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 2006 European Social Survey found that people of localized majority-minority status across 21 EU countries were more supportive of stronger political European integration than existing national native majorities, and a 2019 Pew Research Center study found that 46 percent of white Americans believed national majority-minority demography would negatively impact American culture.

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's Framework Programmes, a 2015 study explored this difference, finding that, for example, ethnic Austrians living in South Tyrol manifest a culture which tends to oblige ethnic Italians to learn the German 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.

Observation by institution

Schools

In the United States, the vast majority of African Americans and Hispanic and Latino Americans attend schools where white Americans are in the minority. 2006 research from The 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." In regards to racial classification at a national level, public schools in the US obtained majority minority status in 2014. At the university level, Harvard University's first case of a majority-minority freshman class was reported in 2017.

In the Netherlands, majority-minority schools emerged in the post-war period, starting as a phenomenon in Amsterdam with immigration from Surinam and from Curaçao, right after World War II. In the 1970 and 80s, second-generation black Dutch students with ancestry from the Netherlands Antilles, were joined in classes by the children of workers emigrating from Turkey and Morocco, creating ethnic Dutch minorities in some schools within the country's capital. In a 2020 study of school classes in European cities, research on Turks in Austria and Belgium 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."

Observation by settlement

Towns and cities

Many cities in North America have majority-minority scenarios (based upon racial classifications in the US census and the census in Canada). Since the late 20th century, areas of Northern and Western Europe have been undergoing demographic transformation resulting in majority minority cities. A 2018 study in ''Frontiers in Psychology'' analyzed:

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 and New 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's Office for National Statistics racial or ethnic categorization, demographic research suggests that Leicester and Birmingham will each join London in majority minority status in the 2020s. 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 other European cities." An education inclusion project at Hague University published that; "In superdiverse cities like Paris, The Hague and Brussels there is no majority anymore. These are so-called majority minority cities". According to a study at the European Commission's research repository CORDIS:

In cities like Amsterdam, 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 in Northwestern Europe, such as Amsterdam and Brussels, have become majority minority, with ethnic Dutch, Flemings and Walloons, respectively, representing less than 50 percent of the population of the capitals.

States and regions

In 2010, the BBC
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