IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/jlaare/165936.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Consumer Attitudes toward Farm-Animal Welfare: The Case of Laying Hens

Author

Listed:
  • Heng, Yan
  • Hanawa Peterson, Hikaru
  • Li, Xianghong

Abstract

Concerns over laying hens’ welfare have led to many different labels for eggs and changes to state regulations. Consumer attitudes toward farm-animal welfare were examined using a national survey in the context of preferences for eggs differentiated by layer management practices. Most respondents perceived caged housing and other conventional management practices as reducing hens’ welfare and were willing to pay a premium for eggs produced in cage-free and other nonconventional production systems. Although participants responded to information about environmental consequences of management practices, they placed more weight on animal welfare issues than environmental issues in their egg-purchase decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Heng, Yan & Hanawa Peterson, Hikaru & Li, Xianghong, 2013. "Consumer Attitudes toward Farm-Animal Welfare: The Case of Laying Hens," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 38(3), pages 1-17.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:jlaare:165936
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.165936
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/165936/files/JARE_Dec2013__8_Heng_pp418-434.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.165936?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allender, William J. & Richards, Timothy J., 2010. "Consumer Impact of Animal Welfare Regulation in the California Poultry Industry," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1-19, December.
    2. Jayson L. Lusk & F. Bailey Norwood, 2011. "Animal Welfare Economics," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 33(4), pages 463-483.
    3. Sumner, Daniel A. & Matthews, William A. & Thurman, Walter N. & Hayes, Dermot J. & Gow, Harnish & Norwood, Bailey, 2010. "Economic and Market Issues on the Sustainability of Egg Production in the United States: Analysis of Alternative Production Systems," Staff General Research Papers Archive 31542, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    4. Laura Mørch Andersen, 2011. "Animal Welfare and Eggs – Cheap Talk or Money on the Counter?," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 565-584, September.
    5. David Revelt & Kenneth Train, 1998. "Mixed Logit With Repeated Choices: Households' Choices Of Appliance Efficiency Level," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 647-657, November.
    6. Sumner, Daniel A. & Matthews, William A. & Mench, Joy A. & Rosen-Molina, J. Thomas, 2010. "The Economics of Regulations on Hen Housing in California," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(3), pages 429-438, August.
    7. Norwood, F. Bailey & Lusk, Jayson L., 2011. "A calibrated auction-conjoint valuation method: Valuing pork and eggs produced under differing animal welfare conditions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 80-94, July.
    8. André M. Asselin, 2005. "Eggcentric Behavior—Consumer Characteristics That Demonstrate Greater Willingness to Pay for Functionality," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(5), pages 1339-1344.
    9. Chang, Jae Bong & Lusk, Jayson L. & Norwood, F. Bailey, 2010. "The Price of Happy Hens: A Hedonic Analysis of Retail Egg Prices," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 35(3), pages 1-18, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heng, Yan & Peterson, Hikaru Hanawa & Li, Xianghong, 2012. "Consumers’ Preferences for Shell Eggs Regarding Laying Hen Welfare," 2012 Annual Meeting, August 12-14, 2012, Seattle, Washington 124592, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Oh, Sohae & Vukina, Tomislav, 2020. "Quantifying the Welfare Effects of Laying-hen Cage Ban," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304408, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    3. Conner Mullally & Jayson L Lusk, 2018. "The Impact of Farm Animal Housing Restrictions on Egg Prices, Consumer Welfare, and Production in California," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(3), pages 649-669.
    4. Ochs, Dan & Wolf, Christopher A. & Widmar, Nicole Olynk & Bir, Courtney & Lai, John, 2019. "Hen housing system information effects on U.S. egg demand," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1-1.
    5. Francisco Alex J. & Bruce Amanda S. & Crespi John M. & Lusk Jayson L. & McFadden Brandon & Bruce Jared M. & Aupperle Robin L. & Lim Seung-Lark, 2015. "Are Consumers as Constrained as Hens are Confined? Brain Activations and Behavioral Choices after Informational Influence," Journal of Agricultural & Food Industrial Organization, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 113-119, January.
    6. Ortega, David L. & Wolf, Christopher A., 2018. "Demand for farm animal welfare and producer implications: Results from a field experiment in Michigan," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 74-81.
    7. Cao, Ying & Chen, Chen & Cranfield, John & Widowski, Tina, 2017. "Market Responses to Information Conveying Mixed Messages – Prediction of Informational Impacts on Consumer Willingness to Pay for Eggs from Welfare Enhanced Cage Systems using Discrete Choice Experime," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258545, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    8. Ortega, David L. & Wang, H. Holly & Wu, Laping & Hong, Soo Jeong, 2015. "Retail channel and consumer demand for food quality in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 359-366.
    9. Cao, Ying (Jessica) & Cranfield, John & Chen, Chen & Widowski, Tina, 2021. "Heterogeneous informational and attitudinal impacts on consumer preferences for eggs from welfare enhanced cage systems," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    10. Ufer, Danielle J., 2025. "Animal Welfare and Treatment Label Claims in U.S. Table Eggs: Trends in Retail Premiums and Policy Impacts, 2008–18," Economic Research Report 349285, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    11. Tomislav Vukina & Danijel Nestic, 2020. "Paying for animal welfare? A hedonic analysis of egg prices," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(4), pages 613-630, October.
    12. Tina L. Saitone & Richard J. Sexton & Daniel A. Sumner, 2015. "What Happens When Food Marketers Require Restrictive Farming Practices?," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1021-1043.
    13. Faical Akaichi & Klaus Glenk & Cesar Revoredo‐Giha, 2022. "Bundling food labels: What role could the labels “Organic,” “Local” and “Low Fat” play in fostering the demand for animal‐friendly meat," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(2), pages 349-370, April.
    14. Lai, Yufeng & Boaitey, Albert & Minegishi, Kota, 2022. "Behind the veil: Social desirability bias and animal welfare ballot initiatives," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    15. Mikolaj Czajkowski & Nick Hanley & Jacob LaRiviere, 2015. "The Effects of Experience on Preferences: Theory and Empirics for Environmental Public Goods," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(1), pages 333-351.
    16. Lai, Yufeng & Yue, Chengyan, 2020. "Consumer Willingness to pay for Organic and Animal Welfare Product Attributes: Do Experimental Results Align with Market Data?," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304328, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Heng, Yan & Peterson, Hikaru Hanawa & Li, Xianghong, 2016. "Consumer Responses to Multiple and Superfluous Labels in the Case of Eggs," Journal of Food Distribution Research, Food Distribution Research Society, vol. 47(2), pages 1-21, July.
    18. repec:sss:wpaper:201405 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Malone, Trey & Lusk, Jayson L., 2016. "Putting the Chicken Before the Egg Price: An Ex Post Analysis of California's Battery Cage Ban," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 41(3), pages 1-15, September.
    20. Paul, Andrew S. & Lusk, Jayson L. & Norwood, F. Bailey & Tonsor, Glynn T., 2019. "An experiment on the vote-buy gap with application to cage-free eggs," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 102-109.
    21. Jayson Lusk, 2011. "The market for animal welfare," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 28(4), pages 561-575, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Livestock Production/Industries;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:jlaare:165936. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/waeaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.