Entrepreneurship is widely recognized as a critical engine of economic growth. This is especially true in rural areas, where resources, policy support, and talent pools are often constrained. Stimulating entrepreneurial vitality in these regions has thus become an urgent policy and research priority. This study adopts an inclusive growth perspective, selecting six key elements—economic level, industrial structure, financial development, educational condition, medical condition, and social security—to construct a theoretical model exploring the configuration pathways that drive rural entrepreneurial activity. Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), the study examines 982 rural regions in China and draws the following conclusions: (1) None of the six key elements is a necessary condition for rural entrepreneurial activity. (2) The “finance and healthcare-driven” type (C1), “industrial and educational balance” type (C2), “financial and educational synergy” type (C3), and “industrial and healthcare support” type (C4) are the configuration paths to achieve high rural entrepreneurial activity. The findings provide both theoretical and practical insights for stimulating entrepreneurship in rural China. Specifically, they highlight how different developmental configurations can activate local entrepreneurial ecosystems, expand employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for vulnerable groups, and contribute to sustainable poverty alleviation.

During the stage of high-quality economic development, the synergy between advancing county industrial structure and employment growth has become a key issue in county governance. Although existing studies confirm that industrial structure has both creation and substitution effects on employment, few have adopted a configurational perspective to reveal how combinations of multiple factors can jointly promote both advanced county industrial structure and employment growth, thereby achieving industry-employment synergy. From the perspective of inclusive growth, this study incorporates six factors-economic level, financial level, innovation level, human capital, fiscal expenditure, and agricultural resources-into a unified analytical framework under the dimensions of efficiency and equity. Using a mixed method that combines dynamic QCA and regression analysis, and taking 1128 Chinese counties as the sample, this study explores configurational pathways that can simultaneously achieve advanced county industrial structure and inclusive employment growth. The findings are as follows: (1) Four configurational pathways lead to advanced county industrial structure: market-driven with efficiency priority (C1), endowment-substituted with factor concentration (C2), endowment-dependent with efficiency-equity coordination (C3), and talent–innovation dual-driven with government assistance (C4). (2) These four pathways differ in their effectiveness in promoting industry–employment synergy. Configurations C1, C2, and C3 achieve coordinated development of county industry and employment, whereas configuration C4 promotes advanced county industrial structure but inhibits employment growth. The conclusions reveal multiple equivalent pathways for synergistically enhancing county industry and employment, providing a basis for local governments to formulate context-specific industry–employment coordination policies.