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Skin Colour Does Not Define Ethnicity: Quantifying Variation and Overlap Across Diverse Populations
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Skin Colour Does Not Define Ethnicity: Quantifying Variation and Overlap Across Diverse Populations
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Journal Article
Skin Colour Does Not Define Ethnicity: Quantifying Variation and Overlap Across Diverse Populations
2026
Overview
Background Skin colour is a prominent human trait historically used to define ethnicity, yet its validity as a classification tool remains questionable. Materials and Methods We quantitatively analyse over 14 000 skin reflectance measurements from eight ethnically diverse groups in the International Skin Spectra Archive (ISSA), using a standard colour space designed to model human visual perception. We assess intragroup variation and intergroup overlap through two complementary approaches: individual‐level perceptual differences and group‐level shared gamut volumes. Results Results show that within‐group variability in chromaticity and lightness frequently exceeds between‐group differences. At the individual level, 89.4% (95% CI: 81.5%–91.9%) of samples have perceptually indistinguishable counterparts across ethnicities. At the group level, the median shared gamut overlap is 60.5% (95% CI: 54.5%–63.6%), indicating substantial overlap in skin colour distributions. The two methods correlate strongly (r = 0.83, p < 0.001), confirming robust intergroup overlap. Conclusion Skin colour exhibits high within‐group dispersion and extensive between‐group overlap. These findings challenge the use of skin colour as a reliable indicator of ethnicity and underscore the need for objective, data‐driven classification frameworks. They also highlight the complex, continuous nature of human skin variation, beyond simplistic ethnic categories.
