The Psychological Impact of Slaughterhouse Employment: A Systematic Literature Review

Highlights:

All of the studies concluded that SHWs have lower levels of psychological well-being compared with their respective control groups.

Lander and colleagues (2016) found that the prevalence of depression was four times higher than the national average.

Lipscomb and colleagues (2007)found that rates of severe depression were more than five times higher than their reference group, controlling for gender and socioeconomic variables.

Similar findings were reported for anxiety, with SHWs having a higher prevalence compared with other professions and the general public

Emhan and colleagues (2012) found that SHWs also had significantly higher levels of psychoticism, somatization, anger, and hostility compared with butchers and office workers. Similarly, Richards and colleagues (2013) found that SHWs had a higher propensity for aggression compared with the public and farmers, on all aspects of aggression (physical aggression, anger, and hostility) except verbal aggression, which was approaching significance. Interestingly, the women in their sample had a significantly higher propensity for aggression scores than the men.

Two articles quantitatively examined the work spillover effect described in Victor and Bernard’s (2016) study. Fitzgerald and colleagues (2009) examined crime reports from 1994 to 2002, whereas Jacques (2015) used data from 2000. Both articles found that slaughterhouse employment was associated with a significant increase in total arrests and arrests for sexual offending (i.e., rape) across all time periods, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic factors. Interestingly, Fitzgerald and colleagues (2009) found a significant negative effect on the number of rapes being reported. Contrary to their hypothesis, they both found no significant relationship between slaughterhouse employment and violent crime (i.e., aggravated assault and murder) during the same time period (from 1997 onward). However, Fitzgerald and colleagues found a significant positive relationship between 1994 and 1997. The studies had conflicting results for sexual offenses (not including rape) and crimes against the family.

In summary:

There’s evidence that SHWs experience more mental illness than the general public as a result of their employment. SHWs describe suffering from trauma, intense shock, paranoia, anxiety, guilt, shame, depression, psychosis, aggression, lack of self worth, and general stress. This also varies by specific job position within the slaughterhouse; those who work directly with animals experience it the worst (killing floor or handling carcasses).

Crime statistics indicate a positive correlation between the presence of slaughterhouses and crime arrests generally and rape arrests specifically. However it is worth noting that this is possibly related to unhealthy coping mechanisms performed by SHWs such as repressing emotions, drug use, engaging in interpersonal violence, and sabotaging their work environment as a form of self expression.

It is also worth noting that some of these studies were not perfect in their methodology. It’s worth checking the limitations section of the originally linked article