Minority group

In terms of sociology, economics, and politics, a demographic that takes up the smallest fraction of the population is not necessarily labelled the "minority" if it wields dominant power.

For example, in South Africa, during Apartheid, white Europeans held virtually all social, economic, and political power over black Africans.

For this reason, black Africans are the "minority group", despite the fact that they outnumber white Europeans in South Africa.

[6] Minority group members often face discrimination in multiple areas of social life, including housing, employment, healthcare, and education, among others.

[11] Protection of minority groups, such as through careful drawing of boundaries of states and proportional representation, was seen as integral in preventing causes of future wars.

[12] The definition includes both objective and subjective criteria: membership of a minority group is objectively ascribed by society, based on an individual's physical or behavioral characteristics; it is also subjectively applied by its members, who may use their status as the basis of group identity or solidarity.

As these differences are usually perceived negatively, this results in loss of social and political power for members of minority groups.

In some places, subordinate ethnic groups may constitute a numerical majority, such as Blacks in South Africa under apartheid.

[27] In the United States's system, whiteness is at the top of a hierarchy that automatically classifies mixed-race individuals as their subordinate race.

[33] Ethnicity encompasses a mix of "long shared cultural experiences, religious practices, traditions, ancestry, language, dialect or national origins".

[37] Immigrants take on minority status in their new country, usually in hopes of a better future economically, educationally, and politically than in their homeland.

Voluntary immigrants do not experience a sense of divided identity as much as involuntary minorities and are often rich in social capital because of their educational ambitions.

However, the terms sexual and gender minority are often not preferred by LGBTQ+ people, as they represent clinical categories rather than individual identity.

[39] Though lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people have existed throughout human history, they represent a numerical and social minority.

LGBTQ+ rights movements across many western countries led to the recognition of LGBTQ+ people as members of a minority group.

[39] Leading up to the Human Rights Act 1998 in the UK, a rise in the awareness relating to how disabled people were being treated began.

This act had a section that stated if authorities did not protect people with learning disabilities from others' actions, such as harm or neglect, then they could be prosecuted.

Speakers of a legally recognized minority language, for instance, might have the right to education or communication with the government in their mother tongue.

for minorities include Canada, China, Ethiopia, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Russia, Croatia, and the United Kingdom.

Many contemporary governments prefer to assume the people they rule all belong to the same nationality rather than separate ones based on ethnicity.

The United States asks for race and ethnicity on its official census forms, which thus breaks up and organizes its population into sub-groups, primarily racial rather than national.

feel that the failure of the dominant English-speaking majority to integrate French Canadians has provoked Quebec separatism.