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Demographic parity

By Updated

A group fairness criterion that holds when the rate of positive decisions is equal across groups; the adverse-impact ratio is its ratio form. It ignores differences in base rates 1.

Developed in
ch. 16, Group fairness metrics
Chapters
ch. 16, Fairness & XAI
Contrast with
Equalised odds
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

One chapter of the Body of Knowledge uses the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

  • Adverse-impact ratio (AIR)

    The selection rate of a group divided by the selection rate of the most-selected group.

  • Fairness

    The property that a system's outcomes and errors do not unjustifiably disadvantage people or groups.

Sources

  1. [1] "Fairness Through Awareness" (Dwork, Hardt, Pitassi, Reingold and Zemel; individual fairness; limits of statistical parity; arXiv 1104.3913). arXiv. 2011-04-20. https://arxiv.org/abs/1104.3913 (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Demographic parity. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/demographic-parity. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026demographicparity,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Demographic parity}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/demographic-parity}
}