# Social capital, digital economy and the entrepreneurship of the new generation of migrant youth: Empirical analysis based on CMDS data

## TL;DR

This paper studies how social capital influences the entrepreneurship of young migrant workers in the digital economy era using 2018 CMDS data.

## Contribution

It reveals that social capital significantly promotes opportunity entrepreneurship among migrant youth, especially in digital economy contexts.

## Key findings

- Social capital, including social networks and trust, significantly promotes entrepreneurship among migrant youth.
- The impact of social capital is stronger on opportunity entrepreneurship than survival entrepreneurship.
- Digital economy enhances the entrepreneurial effects of social capital in central cities and coastal areas.

## Abstract

In the era of digital economy, the form of digital production promotes the transformation of enterprise organization and business operation mechanism. It also affects the development of regional entrepreneurship and the choice of individual entrepreneurship. Youth is the future of the country and the hope of the nation, and youth employment is related to people’s well-being, economic development and the future of the country. From the perspective of social capital, this paper examines the entrepreneurship of the new generation of migrant youth by using the dynamic monitoring data of the floating population in 2018(CMDS). The empirical results show that the improvement of social capital can significantly promote the entrepreneurship of the new generation of migrant youth; From the perspective of social capital, social network, social trust and social status promote entrepreneurship significantly. However, the role of social participation is not obvious. From the perspective of different types of entrepreneurship, compared with survival entrepreneurship, social capital has a more significant impact on opportunity entrepreneurship. Heterogeneity analysis found that, Social capital has a significant impact on opportunistic entrepreneurship of groups with higher education level, higher family income and modern service industry; In the central cities and coastal areas, social capital can promote the opportunity entrepreneurship of the new generation of migrant youth. Expansion analysis further found that the digital economy can significantly promote the entrepreneurial effect of social capital.