Exploring the Perceived Social Support (PSS) of ChatGPT among Female Migrants in the Gulf Countries: A Qualitative Analysis

Social support can positively affect individuals’ well-being, mental health, and perceived quality of life. When migrants leave their country of origin, they might lose their strong social networks and supporting ties. As reshaping social networks after migration might be challenging, this study aims to examine female migrants’ perceptions of ChatGPT’s potential to serve as a source of social support in four dimensions: emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal.

Employing a qualitative research method, we conducted online semi-structured interviews with 64 female migrants working in the Gulf countries for less than a year. We recruited 300 educated, working female migrants in the Gulf countries through LinkedIn. A total of 64 volunteers agreed to participate in the interviews. They were familiar with ChatGPT-3.5 and had used its free version to receive social support for at least two weeks before the interviews. We used a qualitative framework analysis to examine participants' perspectives, applying thematic coding to highlight important aspects of perceived social support. Two researchers independently coded the data to ensure the analysis was thorough, and peer debriefing was carried out to validate the results.

The study found that ChatGPT offers potential as an emotional, instrumental, informative, and appraisal support source, but it lacks genuine human warmth and authentic interaction. While it is beneficial for professional tasks, skill development, and access to accurate information, its feedback often lacks depth for deep, personalized reasoning. The findings suggest the need for future AI improvements to overcome these flaws and improve its completeness and efficiency in providing help.

This study investigates the use of ChatGPT 3.5 in providing social support to working female migrants in the Gulf region. Through interviews with 64 educated migrants, it was found that ChatGPT could offer emotional support related to love, trust, and empathy, but cannot replace human interaction due to its lack of human-like features.

The study concluded that ChatGPT offered valuable emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal support for female migrants.