A fairness-aware extension of Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis for ranking
This study addresses the frequent neglect of group fairness in traditional multicriteria ranking methods under preference uncertainty, which often leads to underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups. To bridge this gap, the authors propose SMAA-Fair, the first approach to embed fairness mechanisms directly into the Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) framework. SMAA-Fair reweights simulated rankings according to fairness metrics—namely statistical parity, normalized discounted KL divergence (rKL), and nDKL—so that fairer rankings receive higher weight in both acceptability indices and central weights. Notably, the method is agnostic to any specific aggregation model, thereby preserving robustness while promoting fairness. Experimental results demonstrate that SMAA-Fair significantly enhances the representation of protected groups in top ranking positions without compromising robustness to preference uncertainty.