Analysis
Color blindness frequency by race/ethnicity: what the evidence actually shows
Short answer: inherited red-green color vision deficiency is most common in males of European ancestry, somewhat lower in many East Asian populations, and often lower again in many African-descent populations—but the differences are not huge once you look at total population prevalence, and sex matters more than race because the common forms are X-linked.
A practical summary from the better-reviewed sources is:
- European/Caucasian males: about 8%
- Chinese/Japanese males: about 4% to 6.5%
- African-descent males: often around ~2% to 4% in many datasets, though some newer reviews put pooled African-ancestry estimates closer to ~2.7% overall population prevalence and note variation across countries and cohorts
- Females in all groups: much lower, usually well under 1% for congenital red-green deficiency
Why this pattern appears
The main inherited forms of color blindness—especially red-green deficiency—are usually X-linked recessive. That means:
- males are affected far more often than females;
- population differences mostly reflect different frequencies of the underlying variants, plus founder effects and genetic drift;
- reported “race” gaps can be distorted by study design, age, local ancestry, migration, and whether a paper reports race, ethnicity, ancestry, or geography.
So the cleanest statement is not “race determines color blindness,” but rather: different ancestral populations show different average frequencies of the common X-linked variants.
Best source for broad cross-population comparisons
A 2012 review in Journal of the Optical Society of America A summarized worldwide prevalence data and reported:
- about 8% of European Caucasian men and 0.4% of European Caucasian women have red-green deficiency;
- about 4% to 6.5% of Chinese and Japanese men are affected;
- prevalence differences across populations are plausibly explained more by founder events and genetic drift than by natural selection.
That review also notes that prevalence in men of African ethnicity may be rising in populations shaped by migration and admixture, which is a reminder that modern racial labels are genetically messy proxies.
Strong modern U.S. multi-ethnic child dataset
The Multi-Ethnic Pediatric Eye Disease Study (Southern California preschool children) found among boys:
- 2.6% in Hispanic children
- 5.6% in non-Hispanic White children
Among girls, prevalence was 0.0% to 0.5% across groups.
This is useful because it compares multiple ethnic groups within one study framework rather than across unrelated national studies. The pattern again points to the highest prevalence in non-Hispanic White boys and the lowest in Black boys.
Newer meta-analytic view
A 2025 Ophthalmology systematic review/meta-analysis of children and adolescents estimated:
- global prevalence: 2.59% overall
- by ancestry, European descent had the highest pooled prevalence at 2.77% and African descent was close behind at 2.69%
That ancestry gap is much smaller than the older rule-of-thumb numbers above. The likely reason is that pooled estimates depend heavily on:
- whether results are reported for the whole population or males only;
- which ages and countries were included;
- modern admixture and heterogeneous ancestry labels;
- which screening methods were used.
So if someone asks “by race,” the safest answer is that older male-specific datasets show clearer differences than newer pooled all-sex meta-analyses do.
Africa-specific evidence
A 2024 Africa-focused systematic review/meta-analysis estimated:
- overall pooled prevalence in Africa: 2.71%
That is directionally consistent with many older reports that African populations often have lower prevalence than Northern European populations, though Africa is obviously not genetically homogeneous.
China-specific example
A 2023 study of Chinese college students found:
That fits the broad pattern that East Asian male prevalence is often lower than the classic ~8% figure reported in European-descended males.
Bottom line
If you want one defensible lay summary:
- Highest commonly cited prevalence: males of European ancestry / non-Hispanic White populations
- Intermediate: many East Asian populations
- Often lower: many African-descent populations
- Much lower across every group: females
But the scientifically careful version is:
1. Sex is the dominant factor because common red-green color blindness is X-linked.
2. Ancestry/population background matters, but “race” is an imprecise stand-in.
3. Exact percentages vary a lot depending on whether the study reports male-only prevalence, whole-population prevalence, ethnicity, country, or ancestry.
Sources
- Birch J. Worldwide prevalence of red-green color deficiency. J Opt Soc Am A. 2012. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22472762/
- Xiong Y et al. Color vision deficiency in preschool children: the multi-ethnic pediatric eye disease study. Ophthalmology. 2014. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24702753/
- Park JH et al. Global Prevalence of Congenital Color Vision Deficiency among Children and Adolescents, 1932-2022. Ophthalmology. 2025. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40769301/
- Dessie MA et al. Prevalence of color vision deficiency in Africa: Systematic review and meta-analysis. PLOS One. 2024. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0313819
- Peng Y et al. Prevalence of color vision deficiency among Chinese college students and their quality of life. Int J Ophthalmol. 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37724287/
- National Eye Institute overview on color blindness. https://www.nei.nih.gov/eye-health-information/eye-conditions-and-diseases/color-blindness
Caveat: this is an evidence summary, not a claim that socially defined race categories map neatly onto genetics. Many studies use mixed labels such as race, ethnicity, ancestry, nationality, or region, which are not interchangeable.