Historical Index of Ethnic Fractionalization

QoG code: hief_efindex

Based on the annual percentage of ethnic groups in each country The Historical Index of Ethnic Fractionalization (hereafter, HIEF) calculates the degree of ethnic fractionalization (EF) using the most universally applied formula in the empirical literature, which is a decreasing transformation of the Herfindahl concentration index.

Where EFc is the level of ethnic fractionalization in country c, i indexes ethnic groups and Si is the proportion of the population in unit c belonging to ethnic group i (i = 1, …, n).

Type of variable
Continuous
Downloaded by QoG on
2025-12-27
Last updated by source
2019-07-24
Details of this variable in our compilation datasets
Dataset No. Countries
Standard time-series 159
OECD time-series 30
Dataset Available for years
Standard time-series 1946-2013
OECD time-series 1946-2013

Country coverage

Click here to see the full list of countries
  • Afghanistan
  • Albania
  • Algeria
  • Angola
  • Argentina
  • Armenia
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Azerbaijan
  • Bahrain
  • Bangladesh
  • Belarus
  • Belgium
  • Benin
  • Bhutan
  • Bolivia
  • Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Botswana
  • Brazil
  • Bulgaria
  • Burkina Faso
  • Burundi
  • Cambodia
  • Canada
  • Cape Verde
  • Central African Republic
  • Chad
  • Chile
  • China
  • Colombia
  • Comoros
  • Congo
  • Costa Rica
  • Cote d'Ivoire
  • Croatia
  • Cuba
  • Cyprus (1975-)
  • Czech Republic
  • Czechoslovakia
  • Denmark
  • Djibouti
  • Dominican Republic
  • Ecuador
  • Egypt
  • El Salvador
  • Eritrea
  • Estonia
  • Eswatini (former Swaziland)
  • Ethiopia (1993-)
  • Fiji
  • Finland
  • Gabon
  • Gambia
  • Georgia
  • Germany
  • Germany, East
  • Ghana
  • Greece
  • Guatemala
  • Guinea
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • Guyana
  • Haiti
  • Honduras
  • Hungary
  • Indonesia
  • Iran
  • Iraq
  • Ireland
  • Israel
  • Italy
  • Jamaica
  • Japan
  • Jordan
  • Kazakhstan
  • Kenya
  • Korea, North
  • Korea, South
  • Kuwait
  • Kyrgyzstan
  • Laos
  • Latvia
  • Lebanon
  • Lesotho
  • Liberia
  • Libya
  • Lithuania
  • Madagascar
  • Malawi
  • Malaysia (1966-)
  • Mali
  • Mauritania
  • Mauritius
  • Mexico
  • Moldova
  • Mongolia
  • Morocco
  • Myanmar
  • Namibia
  • Nepal
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • Nicaragua
  • Niger
  • Nigeria
  • North Macedonia
  • Norway
  • Oman
  • Pakistan (1971-)
  • Panama
  • Paraguay
  • Peru
  • Philippines
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Qatar
  • Romania
  • Russia
  • Rwanda
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Senegal
  • Serbia
  • Serbia and Montenegro
  • Sierra Leone
  • Singapore
  • Slovakia
  • Slovenia
  • Solomon Islands
  • Somalia
  • South Africa
  • Spain
  • Sri Lanka
  • Sudan (2012-)
  • Sweden
  • Switzerland
  • Syria
  • Taiwan
  • Tajikistan
  • Tanzania
  • Thailand
  • Timor-Leste
  • Togo
  • Trinidad and Tobago
  • Tunisia
  • Turkey
  • Turkmenistan
  • USSR
  • Uganda
  • Ukraine
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United Kingdom
  • United States
  • Uruguay
  • Uzbekistan
  • Venezuela
  • Vietnam
  • Yemen, South
  • Zambia
  • Zimbabwe

Year coverage

This variable has information from 1946 to 2013.