A recent business study has revealed that dog walkers will outnumber the demand for teachers. Parents are opting to raise pets instead of children and this trend will see more families with dogs than kids in 10 years' time.
Researchers at the New York firm Conference Board said that consumer demand is already changing among families. The aging Baby Boom generation is picking out dogs as companions since their children have grown up and moved out of the house.
The millennial generation, on the other hand, is choosing to delay having children in favor of furry kids. Spending for pets will see an increase in the next decade because of this changing trend, Bloomberg reports.
"Dogs never learn to talk so that makes them more enjoyable company," Sam Shaughnessy said, per New York Post. "Overall it's a more mutually beneficial relationship," the 29-year-old added, citing why he would rather have a dog than a child.
As dog walkers will become in demand in 10 years, the need for teachers will slow down as there will be fewer children attending schools. The study, however, concedes that its data projection is purely based on demographics without factoring wages, wealth or cost of living and people's lifestyle.
The suggestion that there will be more families raising dogs than kids, however, is not farfetched. In San Francisco, residents already feel that there are not enough children in the neighborhood.
San Francisco has one of the most significant drops in the rate of children population in America at 13 percent. New York has a children population of 21 percent and Chicago has 23 percent. The number of children in San Francisco is almost the same as the dog population in the city, according to New York Times.
It bears noting that these cities have some of the strongest economies in the country. The cities' cost of living, however, is not ideal for raising kids.
