Social Capital and Self-Employment Dynamics in China

Abstract Opportunity-driven entrepreneurship can stimulate economic growth and foster technology innovation, while subsistence-driven self-employment can have the opposite effect. In China, a country with a typical relational society and a middle-income status, the nature of nonagricultural self-employment remains contentious. Examining the influence of social capital on entrepreneurial activities can provide insight into the nature of entrepreneurial activities in China, although this issue has received relatively little attention in the literature. To address this gap, this study employs multivariate discrete choice modeling on national representative samples from the China Family Panel Studies dataset to assess the relationship between social capital and entrepreneurship dynamics. The results indicate that relational, structural, and cognitive social capital all affect entrepreneurial dynamics, and these effects vary between urban and rural areas. Individuals who are less likely to be members of an organization, who are less conscientious, and who have low levels of trust and gift expenses are more likely to become self-employed. Conversely, people with high trust, strong conscientiousness, and low social status are more likely to exit self-employment. In addition, individuals with lower levels of human capital are more likely to both enter and exit self-employment. These findings suggest that self-employment tends to be subsistence-driven in China, which has implications for policymakers seeking to promote opportunity-driven entrepreneurial activities.