Under the gig economy, the flexibility of working time and space brings about more employment model choices and income sources for workers, but also causes many problems and uncertainties, among which the issue of occupational injury has attracted much attention. In particular, basic-skilled gig workers have become the “ hardest hit area” for occupational injuries. However, the existing gig economy related literature seldom traces the source of occupational injuries, which guarantees the rights and interests of gig workers, increases their stickiness to platforms, reduces labor disputes and litigation costs faced by the platforms, and also has a positively significant impact on the sustainable development of gig economy and society as whole. Based on the “ego depletion theory” and the data from 9133 delivery riders on the platform, this research, via the binary Probit model, analyzes the influence and mechanism of action of basic-skilled gig workers’ daily working hours on occupational injuries. As long working hours reduce the basic-skilled gig workers’ selfcontrol ability, leading to the deviation and irrational behavior, which increases the possibility of workers’ occupational injury, but it shows a nonlinear correlation. After handling the problems of endogenous and missing variables through instrumental variable method and robustness test, the conclusion is still robust. Compared with gig workers with less platform income dependence, those with more income dependence are less likely to have occupational injuries. However, work participation motivation, which is the boundary condition, can moderate effects above. The occupational injury rate of those with positive motivation is significantly lower than that of those with negative motivation. In-depth exploration found that individuals who have experienced occupational injuries have a significantly lower willingness to continue to engage in gig work in the future, and have certain expectations for the platform and the government to improve related social security mechanisms. Finally, based on the research conclusions, this study puts forward relevant policy and platform management suggestions.
