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Public concern for animal welfare and its correlation with ethical ideologies after coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

B Su  and
P Martens
B Su*
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy and Social Development, Shandong University, Jinan, People's Republic of China
P Martens
Affiliation:
University College Venlo, Maastricht University, Venlo, The Netherlands
*
* Contact for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

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The outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) represents a major public health challenge and a serious threat to sustainable social development. A consideration of animal welfare is clearly justified, given the potential contribution of animals to the spread of the disease. The present study, therefore, sought to investigate the concern the Chinese people have for animal welfare (PCAW) and how their ‘ethical ideology’ (idealism and relativism) determines PCAW after COVID-19, through comparison with the same study, carried out in China in 2015. Our results demonstrated a significant improvement in Chinese PCAW after COVID-19. The adverse impact of COVID-19 may have resulted in a lowered idealism score and this decreased score served to neutralise significant correlations between idealism and PCAW, compared to the 2015 results. The global pandemic did not increase people's relativism score and a significant correlation was found between relativism and PCAW. Gender, age, educational level, public perception of animals after COVID-19, zoo and aquarium visiting were all shown to be predictor variables for PCAW. This study is one of the first to investigate Chinese PCAW after COVID-19 and can therefore provide knowledge that will potentially increase Chinese PCAW.

Keywords

animal welfareChinaCOVID-19cultureethical idealismethical relativism
Type
Research Article
Information
Animal Welfare , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 309 - 318
Copyright
© 2022 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare

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