What Attracts College Students to Start a Business in Rural Areas?—A Qualitative Comparative Analysis from China

Abstract

Employment is an important public issue related to national economy and people’s livelihood. In 2022, the global youth unemployment rate will reach 14.9%, affecting a total of 73 million people. In order to deal with the social risks brought about by large scale youth unemployment, countries around the world are taking measures to solve the employment problem of college students, the main youth employment group. In the 14th Five-Year Plan, China proposes to promote the modernization and development of agriculture and rural areas by supporting university graduates and scientific and technical personnel to enter the rural economy and start their own businesses; moreover, China also aims to achieve economic recovery in the post epidemic era through mutual promotion between the entrepreneurial choices of college students and the direction of national economic development. Through qualitative comparative analysis of 131 Chinese college students, it is found that none of the antecedents meets the requirements of sufficient and necessary conditions for consistency greater than or equal to 0.8 and coverage greater than or equal to 0.9. Further analysis shows that there are three paths for college students’ rural entrepreneurship: “resource-based, with policy guarantee and villager participation”, “policy support, villager participation” and “villagers actively participate”. The government, enterprises, villages and college students should invest more in improving policy support, building infrastructure, diversifying industrial structure, clarifying strategic positioning of villages and innovating entrepreneurial models, so as to promote the modernization of China’s agriculture and rural development and the realization of the goal of rural revitalization while solving the employment difficulties of college students.