We have sought to reduce the appearance of precision by rounding to the nearest 1000 but for most groups could easily have rounded to the nearest 10,000 or 100,000 without any loss of relative accuracy. Similarly, proportions have been rounded to the nearest thousandth, sometimes hundredth depending on the reliability of the source data. Further rounding is not appropriate because these proportions will be used for future estimations of group population size. Note also that population estimates for years prior to 1995 in previous versions of the MAR data set have not been revised. The proportion then is applied to U.S. Census Bureau estimates of country population for 1995 and 1998.
Some sources report group size in percentages, in which case the usually task is simple.
Other sources report estimates of absolute numbers. When using absolute numbers we express the number as a proportion of total country population for the year of reference. The 1995 and 1998 estimates of group size then are determined by applying the proportion derived from the 1989 data to country population estimates for those years. Our first step was to list existing estimates of group population from Minority at Risk files for 1990 and 1995 and to cross-check them against general sources. We also checked demographic estimates in reports from Minority Rights Group, some of which provided comparative information that we regarded as superior B because more internally-consistent and detailed B than others.