Urban Inclusiveness and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Microdata on Migrants

Abstract

With the progressive reforms of China s household registration system, China has unleashed its demographic dividends over the time and promoted the economic growth. Guided by the new vision of development, urban inclusiveness, especially the urban inclusiveness to the migrant population, will become a force for driving economic growth. Using the 2016 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS) dataset, we measure urban inclusiveness with the level of migrants access to same public services and social security as local residents and explore the effects of urban inclusiveness on migrants entrepreneurship. The results show that urban inclusiveness encourages migrants to start businesses and has a positive effect on the level of entrepreneurship. The urban environmental conditions and heterogeneity of individual laborers have different regulating effects on the influence of urban inclusiveness on individual entrepreneurial choice. The findings offer important inspirations for policy making in reforming the Chinese urban systems and promoting migrants entrepreneurship.