The Coming Change That's Happening With The Millennial Generation.

I discussed a few posts back the view by some on how millennials are going to save us from a recession.  You know from reading that post that I think they're a much bigger deal than short-term worries about a recession.  Let's look at their demographic data so you can get a sense of why I think this has the potential to be so vast.  Depending on who you talk to the millennial generation comprises something like 82-96 million residents of the US.  That generation was born between 1981-1996.  The oldest are now 38 and the youngest not quite 23.  There's been more ink spilled about that cohort then perhaps any grouping since us baby boomers.  They are now in the most likely years where if they're going to form families they're going to do it soon.  

Guess what?  They are!  I have three kids in this cohort and it seems as if they're going to one wedding after the other.  Also if you spend some time looking around you'll notice a lot of young people now pushing strollers.  Things change when you have a kid.  The money you put away a year ago for that trip to Portugal now gets used on diapers and formula.  Also that discretionary cash now gets put into the savings account, possibly to buy a house.  Of course not every millennial is going to behave like their parents but enough will that it's going to start impacting big areas of the economy I'm guessing in the next few years.  Let's say millennials produce the standard 2.1 kids, a number I see bandied about as a coming representative statistical size for this cohort.  If that's the case then the US is going to be awash in babies in the coming years, somewhere between 86-100 million of em!

Guess what else?  Not to far on their heels is "Gen Z".  These kids were born in the late 1990s and on.  That means the oldest of them is about 22-23.  There's somewhere between 60-70 million of these kids.  Give them another 6-7 years and the oldest of that cohort will enter the prime house holding years as well.  Tack on then another 63-75 million babies coming not that far behind.  So let's think about this.  Let's say we're 5 years into this next baby boom and let's calculate we're right now a nation of around 330 million people there's the potential in let's say the next 30-35 year period for something like 140-175 million babies.  That's the potential for a lot of babies and also the potential for the demographic profile of the US to skew lower in the coming years.

Anyway food {baby food that is} for thought.

PS:  When thinking about these changes {and also food, which is largely featured in the article I'm sending you to} you might have an interest in reading how the millennial lifestyle is about to get more expensive.  It's an article from a few weeks back but I think it highlights the issue with many of the internet business models that have come into existence in the past five years or so.

Back Thursday.