The effects of natural resources on regional sustainable development is widely discussed by scholars and policymakers. However, most of the researchers concentrated on economic growth and technical development; evidence of how natural resources affect the soft environment is relatively lacking. Different from the neo-classical economics perspective of resource allocation, we used the evolutionary economics scope of factor creation and historical evolution to explore the effect on China’s regional entrepreneurship laid by the natural resource distribution on the early stage of China. The resource curse is explained from the aspect of regional entrepreneurship development in China. Based on the provincial panel data from China, in China’s industrial statistical yearbook and China’s statistical yearbook, we applied PLS-SEM (Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Model) to explore the path from natural resources to regional entrepreneurship. We also examined the mediating effect at the organizational scale, industry structure, the degree of regional openness, and the quality of human capital in the path between natural resource and entrepreneurship. The result shows that natural resources in the early-stage has negative effects on the growth of the entrepreneurship. Besides, industry structure and organizational scale are significant in terms of mediation effect in the path of the resource curse. An in-depth analysis is provided, and implications are discussed based on the results with the aim of revealing the mechanism and path-dependence of China’s regional development. The implications of this research include the suggestion of adapt the industry structure and motivate start-ups.

Background Like most countries in the world, China is stepping into an aging society and Healthy aging (HA) faces great challenges. Chinese rural empty elderly nesters (CREEN) as the vulnerable groups of ageing populations, providing health services for CREEN needs more attention and guidance. Methods Using the method of logistic regression, four dimensions of HA among 618 respondents were separately analyzed based on the fifth public panel data of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Results 41.42% respondents met the recommended good physical health (PA), ‘being literate’, ‘expectation of receiving long-term care in the future from family’, and ‘good physical health of grown children’ were significant protective factors for PA. 83.17% respondents had good daily activity level, ‘aged under 60 years’ and ‘grown children being literate’ were significant protective factors while ‘CREEN once lived with grown children’ was a significant risk factor. 59.39% respondents had good psychological health, ‘Male sex’, ‘Expectations of receiving long-term care in the future’, and ‘Physical health of grown children’ were significant protective factors. 36.73% respondents met the corresponding criteria of good social participation, ‘aged under 60 years’ was a significant protective factor while ‘CREEN once lived with grown children’ was also a significant risk factor. Conclusions For the CREEN, social participation, physical health and psychological health should be the focus and direction of providing health services. One factor could have different influence on different aspects of HA among CREEN. When health services are provided for CREEN, the second focus should assess comprehensive impact and do the long-term observation. Providing health services for CREEN should not only focus on ‘What they have’ and ‘What they don’t have’, but also focus on ‘What they have and then lose’, especially factors associated with their grown children. Those points should be the future focus of health services for CREEN.