The sociability space: Putting social networks into geographical space

Social interactions and daily mobility are two behaviors that mutually transform throughout life. Understanding how they interact is particularly important for elderly people, who are more at risk to be spatially and socially isolated. From data collected among a sample of 225 people aged 60 and over living in the Paris region (France), we explore how their social interactions are embedded into their activity space using the new concept of “sociability space” (the geographical portion of the activity space consisting of places visited with social network member). Sociability places are found to less numerous, less diversified, more spatially dispersed and more decentered from residence than non-sociability places. Regarding traditional social network measures (degree, global clustering, etc.), stronger and more numerous correlations are observed with the structural characteristics of sociability spaces than with non-sociability spaces. Finally, variations in structural characteristics of sociability spaces according to people’s socio-demographic and residential profiles largely differ from those observed in structural characteristics of non-sociability spaces. This empirical study shows that “sociability space” indicators are complementary to social network indicators and provide a more precise picture of geography of social interactions than activity space considered as a whole. Such approach may help to identify particular groups at risk of social isolation, such as people living alone and those with a low level of education, and inspire public policies aiming at both promoting daily mobility and reducing social isolation.