The Gig Economy in Party Manifestos: Analysing Salience and Rhetoric Across Europe

The gig economy is a very recent phenomenon in Europe. It is growing rapidly, however, it still accounts for a small share of employment. Consequently, it is valid to ask why parties should develop a policy position on this topic. The paper analyses (1) whether the entire party spectrum addresses the gig economy; (2) which sentiments different party families use; and (3) whether party- or country-level factors influence the probability of addressing the issue. Using 189 manifestos from parliamentary elections between 2018 and 2022 in 23 European countries, this paper employs dictionary and sentiment analyses to study the issue’s salience and the parties’ tone. Additionally, multilevel models are estimated to analyse the influencing factors. The findings show that the gig economy is addressed in about 30% of manifestos, that parties from the entire ideological spectrum engage in the mainly negative discussion and that both party and national contexts matter.