Objective/Meaning Driven by the rural revitalization strategy and the goal of common prosperity, the entrepreneurship among returned migrant workers has emerged as a significant employment model in China. This study aimed to deeply analyze the incentive effect of entrepreneurial role models on the entrepreneurship activities of returned migrant workers from both temporal and spatial perspectives, with the intention of providing theoretical and empirical support for promoting the rural economic development and achieving the common prosperity.

Methods/Procedures Based on the data of China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) in 2017 and 2019, a linear probability model was used to conduct an empirical analysis of entrepreneurial activities among 3942 returned migrant workers. By constructing the benchmark regression model, the self-selection issues were dealt with, the robustness test was carried out, and the temporal and spatial action mechanism was deeply analyzed. Then, the impact of farmers’ entrepreneurial role models in 2017 on the entrepreneurship probability of returned migrant workers in 2019 was comprehensively evaluated.

Results/Conclusions The study found that the farmers’ entrepreneurial role models in 2017 significantly increased the entrepreneurship probability among the returned migrant workers in 2019, and this conclusion remained robust after alleviating the self-selection issues. The further analysis showed that the incentive effect of entrepreneurial role models exhibited significant spatio-temporal heterogeneity, particularly in the regions with lower urbanization rates and in western China.