Objective/Meaning  The rural surplus labor force was an important research issue under the background of rural revitalization in the new era. By clarifying the research status of rural surplus labor force, analyzing the research hotspots of rural surplus labor force, and finding out the deficiencies and problems existed in the research, it could provide directions for the further research on the rural surplus labor force.

  Methods/Procedures  By taking 1052 core papers of Peking University, CSSCI, and CSCD papers in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) as the research data, the research status and hot trends of rural surplus labor force were analyzed by using the visual analysis software CiteSpace.5.8.R2/3, and the research status of rural surplus labor force was summarized from the perspectives of the number of journal publications, author and research structure, and keyword clustering, etc.

  Results/Conclusions  The results showed that the research achievements in the field of rural surplus labor in China were quite rich, but the cooperation between authors and institutions was less and scattered, and the research mainly focused on the topics such as the transfer of surplus labor, employment, and urbanization, etc. Therefore, the future research should strengthen the cooperation and communication between teams, constantly deepen the research themes, and jointly seek the solutions from the perspective of the coordinated development of rural revitalization and new urbanization.