Over the last 10 years, China’s average rate of Entrepreneurship has averaged 14.1%. This is according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor that researches the percentage of the nation’s GDP generated by Entrepreneurial Activity.

So what does Entrepreneurship look like at a city by city level in China? According to a recent article in The Economist and a recent study by schools in Shenzhen & Hong Kong, entrepreneurial levels are decreasing rapidly in some of the biggest cities. Cities like Shenzhen (which had the highest rate of population growth from 1990 – 2000 out of any Chinese city) has seen it’s percentage of the population involved in entrepreneurial activity drop rapidly from 12% in 2004 to 5% in 2009.

The Universities conducting this study also noticed similar rate drops in other major Chinese cities. But on the other hand, high levels of Entrepreneurship showed up in the poor, rural cities.

This leads us into the discussion of Opportunity vs. Necessity Entrepreneurship. As cities such as Shenzhen (just north of Hong Kong on the Chinese side) develop, land prices rise, and the cost of starting a new business also rises. Most new businesses these days in Shenzhen are started out of opportunity and are not completely necessary to keep the entrepreneur alive. However, in the poor rural areas that are starting to accumulate people into future major cities, the entrepreneurial levels are high and are based upon necessity. Someone has to sell a widget to feed their family.

What we are seeing in China is that as major cities mature, their levels of corporate citizens rise and their levels of entrepreneurial activity decrease. Shenzhen’s drop of 12% to 5% is substantial.