Finally, in Chapter 10 I close the book by discussing some broader conclusions about the study of ethnicity and ethnic change, while also speculating about future prospects for the relationship between industrialization and assimilation. In the former case I focus on such topics as future quantitative work using data on ethnicity, our understanding of individuals who change their ethnic identities, the role of the state in enforcing or promoting ethnic identification and policy implications as regards promoting industrialization. In the latter case I return to my original dataset of country censuses from Chapter 4 to see if the relationship between industrialization and ethnic diversity changes over time. Upon introducing an interaction effect, I find evidence for a declining effect over time, although it appears that the interaction effect is driven by observations from the Americas, a result for which I find evidence in the secondary literature as well.

Here I provide an overview of the concepts of ethnicity and industrialization. I first define ethnic groups as descent-based groups and show how vertical ethnic change can take place, both through the consolidation of smaller ethnic groups into larger ones as well as assimilation into a national identity. The chapter also discusses why the book focusses on what I call vertical ethnic change instead of horizontal ethnic change, namely because the former is far more prevalent than the latter. I then provide a similar overview of the concept of industrialization, by focussing on how industrialization has historically involved a shift in the focus of the economy from rural agriculture to urban employment and from land to labour as the predominant factor of production. I justify my use of carbon emissions as my predominant cross-national quantitative measure of industrialization and my use of urbanization as my main proxy for industrialization for regions or communities within countries.