Social segregation around the clock in the Paris region (France)

Abstract

While social scientists have invested a lot of energy in exploring the uneven distribution of social groups in the city, they have surprisingly limited their efforts to investigating social segregation at the place of residence. The present paper investigates social segregation over the 24h a day in the Paris region, taking into account how social groups move within a city throughout the day.From a large and precise daily travel survey carried out in the Paris region (EGT 2010) among 25,500 respondents aged 16 or over, we have computed segregation indices and maps hour by hour from respondents' educational and socioprofessional indicators. We then observed that social segregation within the Paris region decreases during the day and that the most segregated group (the upper class group) during the night remains the most segregated during the day. We also explored how the co-presence between various social groups evolves throughout the day. Finally, we highlighted some large variations in districts' social composition over 24h: districts with similar social composition during the night can differ deeply in their social composition during the day-time because of socially selective daily trips.Exploring social segregation around the clock helps in considering more dynamically place effects on individual behavior and targeting areas to implement interventions more connected with the real city rhythm.