Attitudes of meat consumers in Mexico and Spain about farm animal welfare: A cross-cultural study

Abstract

The aim of this cross-cultural survey conducted in a developed country (Spain, n = 1455) and an emerging country (Mexico, n = 833), was to analyse how meat consumers perceive farm animal welfare and how these perceptions and attitudes can be convergent or divergent. The intercultural comparison shows that animal welfare is a convergent value between Mexicans and Spaniards. However, the importance of animal welfare for consumers varies according to sociodemographic variables such as gender, rural or urban origin, educational level and age. The motivations of consumers in both countries to build this convergence around the overall importance on farm animal welfare are divergent. For Spaniards, animal welfare seems to be a legal, administrative, and verifiable reality that must be profitable to society. In contrast, for Mexican consumers, animal welfare is still an aspirational ideal. Despite this, such divergences may end up building large consensus that are transformed into a stable added value of the market for meat products.

Keywords: Cross-cultural survey; Farm animal welfare; Gender; Meat consumers; Mexico; Spain.