Millennials are waiting longer to get married, buy a house, have children, and do other adult activities; instead, millennials are becoming pet parents.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the birth rate has dropped to an all-time low in the United States. Millennials just aren’t having kids, and they’re instead becoming puppy parents.
In fact, millennials make up the largest segment of pet owners, at 35 percent.
A Wall Street Journal study found that pet owners are trending toward premium pet food instead of legacy pet food brands such as Pedigree, Purina, and Kibbles ‘n Bits because they only want the best for their pet babies.
“They treat them like it was their firstborn child,” Beverley Petrunich, owner of DoGone Fun, a dog day care center in Chicago, told the Wall Street Journal.
According to Nielsen, annual household spending on pet food among pet owners increased 36 percent over the last 10 years. Last year, pet owners spent $69.5 billion on their pets, in comparison to just $41.2 billion in 2007.
Dog food is not the only industry affected by these millennial parenting trends, however. The toy chain Toys R Us blamed its closing on the declining birth rate. With birth rates among women in their 20s dropping by 15 percent between 2007 and 2012, according to the Urban Institute, many more industries may be affected soon.
Alexander James is a contributor to Red Alert Politics and a freelance journalist.
