Data source: James D. Fearon
The data was used for the article Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country, published by the Journal of Economic Growth. It contains data on 822 ethnic groups in 160 countries that made up at least 1 percent of the country's population in the early 1990s. This data was last updated in 2003. For this compilation, QoG Data imputes the values from 2003 into 2025.
When using this dataset, please cite as:
(Fearon, 2003)
Browse variables and select them for download.
fe_cultdiv
This measure modifies fractionalization (fe_etfra) so as to take some account of cultural distances between groups, measured as the structural distance between languages spoken by different groups in ...
fe_etfra
Restricting attention to groups that had at least 1 percent of country population in the 1990s, Fearon identifies 822 ethnic and "ethnoreligious'' groups in 160 countries. This variable reflects the p ...
fe_lmin
Based on the same set of groups, this variable reflects the population share of the second largest group (largest minority). The values are assumed to be constant for all years.
fe_plural
Based on the same set of groups, this variable reflects the population share of the largest group (plurality group) in the country. The values are assumed to be constant for all years.