Social Support via WeChat? Explorations of Chinese Rural–Urban Women’s Happiness

Linxin Wang ()
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Linxin Wang: School of Journalism, Media and Culture, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 1FS, UK

Social Sciences, 2025, vol. 14, issue 3, 1-15

Abstract: Employing a social support perspective allows us to examine the experiences of migrant women in assembly lines using WeChat to explore the relationship between social support and their subjective well-being. Th paper takes advantage of the digital ethnography method to investigate Chinese rural–urban women using WeChat in Tianjin, China. Utilizing a snowball sampling approach to search for 47 interviewees, this study conducted in-depth face-to-face interviews. The research discovered that activities organized by companies, digital information, and virtual communication, to some extent, provide Chinese migrant women with social support, consequently positively influencing their subjective well-being. It is undeniable that the use of WeChat seems to conceal the inequality, imbalance, and many other issues behind this phenomenon. Even so, this discovery will help researchers investigate migrant women’s urban inclusion and mental health in the future.

Keywords: social support; female migrant workers; WeChat (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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