The Challenges of Measuring Multiracial, Hispanic, and Native American Populations

What is it about?

For multiracial, Hispanic, and Native Americans, norms for how people self-identify their race and ethnicity are less well established than they are for other population groups. This presents challenges to researchers and analysts in terms of consistently and accurately estimating the size and population dynamics of these groups. I argue that researchers need to first establish the population that could identify as members of the group based on their ancestry, and then calculate how many within that population actually do identify that way.

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Why is it important?

Examining how many people who could identify with these groups choose to do so sheds light on assimilation and racial classification processes. Analyses of the larger potential populations also avoid bias stemming from nonrandom patterns of self-identification with the groups.