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Surveys


Index of Ethnic Integration 2007
27.Jun.2007

Download the Index in PDF format.
Download the Appendix to the Index in PDF format.

The Index of Ethnic Integration was first introduced in 2005 based upon a study conducted by Vitosha Research in March 2005 in six Bulgarian municipalities. This report presents the results from the third study and compares them to the first two studies, conducted in March and September 2005. The study in March 2007 was conducted among the population of ten municipalities with the major goal of examining the condition of ethnic and religious integration in these 10 municipalities, whose population is characterized with a multi-ethnic and multi-religious structure.

The following municipalities have been examined in this study: Razgrad, Isperih, Aytos, Devin, Kardjali, Momchilgrad, Asenovgrad, Targovishte, Dupnitsa, and Samokov. On the basis of the results obtained from the studies conducted so far, Index of Ethnic Integration has been calculated for each of the municipalities which allows for both preparing a comparative analysis between the separate municipalities as well as examining the dynamics of the index values in each of them.

The Index of Ethnic Integration measures the equal status of ethnic groups in seven main fields of social life:
  • Local self-government
  • Labor market
  • Education
  • Health care
  • Social services
  • Standard of living
  • Attitude to the others
The index values vary in the range of 0 to 1, where 0 means total lack of equal status between the ethnic and religious groups, while 1 means equal status of the ethnic and religious groups.

The summarized Index of Ethnic Integration records a growth in 4 of the examined municipalities: Devin, Kardjali, Momchilgrad, and Dupnitsa. In contrast, a decrease in the general index can be established in the other six municipalities: Razgrad, Isperih, Aytos, Asenovgrad, Targovishte, and Samokov. The greatest decline is recorded in Aytos and Asenovgrad. It has to be taken into consideration that a considerable change even in one of the sub-indexes influences the value of the summarized Index of Ethnic Integration which can lead to rash and incorrect conclusions. For this reason particularly, it is important to analyze carefully the values of the constituent sub-indices.