Entrepreneurship and local citizenship identification among migrants: Evidence from China

Utilizing data from a national survey on China's internal migrants, this study investigates the relationship between entrepreneurship and migrants' identification with local citizenship. Our findings reveal that entrepreneurship fosters a stronger sense of identification with local citizenship among migrants. However, the type of entrepreneurial motivation plays a different role. Opportunity-driven entrepreneurship, pursued due to perceived market opportunities, is more conducive to promoting migrants' citizenship identification compared to necessity-driven entrepreneurship, which arises from a lack of alternative employment prospects. Two possible mechanisms through which entrepreneurship facilitates socioeconomic status and social integration are examined. The positive link between entrepreneurship and citizenship identification highlights entrepreneurship as a potential pathway for cultivating belongingness among migrant communities and has important implications for migrant integration policies. • Entrepreneurship enhances migrants' identification with local citizenship. • Opportunity-driven entrepreneurship more strongly fosters local citizenship identification. • Necessity-driven entrepreneurship shows weaker effects on identity formation. • Entrepreneurship promotes social integration via improved socioeconomic status. • Findings suggest entrepreneurship as a policy tool for migrant integration.