---
title: "Demographic parity"
description: "A group fairness criterion that holds when the rate of positive decisions is equal across groups; the adverse-impact ratio is its ratio form."
canonical: https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/demographic-parity
author: "Jorge García Aibar"
license: "CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)"
doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197
version: "0.5.0"
updated: 2026-09-24
---

# Demographic parity

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](https://aigovernanceengineer.com/bok/fairness-and-explainability#group-fairness-metrics)
- Chapters: [ch. 16, Fairness & XAI](https://aigovernanceengineer.com/bok/fairness-and-explainability)
- Contrast with: [Equalised odds](https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/equalised-odds)
- In the glossary chapter: https://aigovernanceengineer.com/bok/glossary#t-demographic-parity

## Sources

[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)