A method and a system for gesture recognition are provided for recognizing a gesture performed by a user in front of an electronic product having a video camera. In the present method, an image containing the upper body of the user is captured and a hand area in the image is obtained. The hand area is fully scanned by a first couple of concentric circles. During the scanning, a proportion of a number of skin color pixels on an inner circumference of the first couple of concentric circles and a proportion of a number of skin color pixels on an outer circumference of the first couple of concentric circles are used to determine a number of fingertips in the hand area. The gesture is recognized by the number of fingertips and an operation function of the electronic product is executed according to an operating instruction corresponding to the recognized gesture.