Understanding the tradeoffs between quality and morality: Insights from consumer response to animal welfare eggs in China.

Public interest in improving farm animal welfare has increased globally, but research on consumer demand for enhanced welfare practices lags, particularly in China. The tradeoffs between ethical and quality concerns driving consumer acceptance of animal welfare, which support sustainable food consumption, remain unexplored. This study identifies emerging market consumers' true preferences for laying hen welfare attributes and underlying psychological drivers. Specifically, using survey data from 1,021 Chinese egg consumers, we employed a discrete choice experiment embedded in random parameter logit model and latent class model to elicit perceptions. Results reveal consumers are willing to pay 45% and 78% premiums for nest-box use and free-range systems. Further analysis indicates that these preferences are primarily driven by food quality concerns rather than ethical concerns, consistent with the dual attributes (self-interest vs. altruism) framework of moral products. Furthermore, consumers' preferences display pronounced demographic heterogeneity, with stronger willingness to pay among women, younger cohorts, higher-income households, and more educated individuals. Latent class analysis further identified four distinct groups: 31.5% "novel welfare preference", 11% "unbalanced welfare-price", 42.9% "balanced welfare-price", and 14.6% "traditional welfare preference" consumers. The findings suggest that, in China's emerging economy, market-driven advances in laying hen welfare should prioritize tangible food quality cues over pure ethical narratives and facilitate differentiated welfare labels to capture targeted groups. These insights contribute implications for enhancing farm animal welfare through the consumer market and provide valuable guidance for the development of welfare standards, product differentiation, and cost-benefit evaluation of welfare policies in emerging markets.