FairGC: Fairness-aware Graph Condensation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Gao, Yihan, Huang, Chenxi, Shi, Wen, Sun, Ke, Xu, Ziqi, Zhang, Xikun, Hou, Mingliang, Luo, Renqiang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Gao, Yihan
Huang, Chenxi
Shi, Wen
Sun, Ke
Xu, Ziqi
Zhang, Xikun
Hou, Mingliang
Luo, Renqiang
author_facet Gao, Yihan
Huang, Chenxi
Shi, Wen
Sun, Ke
Xu, Ziqi
Zhang, Xikun
Hou, Mingliang
Luo, Renqiang
contents Graph condensation (GC) has become a vital strategy for scaling Graph Neural Networks by compressing massive datasets into small, synthetic node sets. While current GC methods effectively maintain predictive accuracy, they are primarily designed for utility and often ignore fairness constraints. Because these techniques are bias-blind, they frequently capture and even amplify demographic disparities found in the original data. This leads to synthetic proxies that are unsuitable for sensitive applications like credit scoring or social recommendations. To solve this problem, we introduce FairGC, a unified framework that embeds fairness directly into the graph distillation process. Our approach consists of three key components. First, a Distribution-Preserving Condensation module synchronizes the joint distributions of labels and sensitive attributes to stop bias from spreading. Second, a Spectral Encoding module uses Laplacian eigen-decomposition to preserve essential global structural patterns. Finally, a Fairness-Enhanced Neural Architecture employs multi-domain fusion and a label-smoothing curriculum to produce equitable predictions. Rigorous evaluations on four real-world datasets, show that FairGC provides a superior balance between accuracy and fairness. Our results confirm that FairGC significantly reduces disparity in Statistical Parity and Equal Opportunity compared to existing state-of-the-art condensation models. The codes are available at https://github.com/LuoRenqiang/FairGC.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_28321
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FairGC: Fairness-aware Graph Condensation
Gao, Yihan
Huang, Chenxi
Shi, Wen
Sun, Ke
Xu, Ziqi
Zhang, Xikun
Hou, Mingliang
Luo, Renqiang
Machine Learning
Graph condensation (GC) has become a vital strategy for scaling Graph Neural Networks by compressing massive datasets into small, synthetic node sets. While current GC methods effectively maintain predictive accuracy, they are primarily designed for utility and often ignore fairness constraints. Because these techniques are bias-blind, they frequently capture and even amplify demographic disparities found in the original data. This leads to synthetic proxies that are unsuitable for sensitive applications like credit scoring or social recommendations. To solve this problem, we introduce FairGC, a unified framework that embeds fairness directly into the graph distillation process. Our approach consists of three key components. First, a Distribution-Preserving Condensation module synchronizes the joint distributions of labels and sensitive attributes to stop bias from spreading. Second, a Spectral Encoding module uses Laplacian eigen-decomposition to preserve essential global structural patterns. Finally, a Fairness-Enhanced Neural Architecture employs multi-domain fusion and a label-smoothing curriculum to produce equitable predictions. Rigorous evaluations on four real-world datasets, show that FairGC provides a superior balance between accuracy and fairness. Our results confirm that FairGC significantly reduces disparity in Statistical Parity and Equal Opportunity compared to existing state-of-the-art condensation models. The codes are available at https://github.com/LuoRenqiang/FairGC.
title FairGC: Fairness-aware Graph Condensation
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.28321