Research Hot Spots and Trends of Gig Economy—Visual Analysis Based on CiteSpace

To explore the hot spots and trends of domestic and foreign research on the gig economy, this paper uses CiteSpace software to visually analyze the Chinese and English literature on this topic selected from CNKI and WOS databases. It is found that the gig economy generally refers to the digital gig economy based on the network platform in the Internet era. Research in this field officially started in 2016. A highly productive group of domestic and international authors has not yet been formed. The research institutions are mainly universities, and the cooperation between English research institutions is closer. Global-developed countries and domestically developed cities are the main force of research in this field. Compared with some countries, such as the US and the UK, China still has more room for development in terms of case studies and empirical research. The research on the gig economy focuses on the following points: first, the connotation of the gig economy; second, the relationship between the gig economy and the sharing economy, the digital economy, the platform economy, and their impact on the economy and society; third, the opportunities and challenges in the gig economy; fourth, the advantages and disadvantages of Internet technology in the gig economy network platform; finally, the new legislation needs under the gig economy, etc. Overwork, collective action of gig workers, and service performance of gig jobs are the latest research trends in this field.