Historic Changes in Franchise Prospect Demographics: Millennials Outnumber Boomers Seeking Franchises in 2021

July 21, 2021 – For the first time in history, more Millennials are seeking franchise ownership than Baby Boomers. While Generation X (ages 41-56 in 2021), has shown the greatest share of franchise interest for some years, that share may have peaked in 2020 at 48.2%, based on year-to-date data in 2021 through June.

The Gen-Y or Millennial cohort (ages 25-40 in 2021) is growing rapidly in share, and now makes up the second largest generation of future franchise owners at 24.7%, edging out Baby Boomers at 23.4% of franchise inquiries. 

 Millenials are already the largest share of home buyers at 37%, according to the National Association of Realtors.

While Millennials (Gen-Y) have outnumbered Generation X in the population for some years,  the older Gen-Xers have greater economic assets and more individuals of prime business startup ages. The great news for the franchise industry is that Generation X and Generation Y combine to create a growing population reaching prime startup years in the coming decades.

Boomers (ages 57-75 in 2021) continue to age out of prime business ownership years, and that trend may have been accelerated by the pandemic as seen in increasing recent retirement rates. 

The trends noted above may be confirmed once a full year of data is available.

For this analysis, Franchise Insights combined proprietary data from the FranchiseVentures’ demand-generation platform with demographic data from Alliant, a leading provider of U.S. consumer audience targeting and data enrichment and predictive analytics.

FranchiseVentures is the leading franchise lead-generation platform for potential franchisees to thousands of growing franchise systems in the United States and Canada. Its franchise lead generation brands include Franchise.com, Franchise Solutions, Franchise Gator, Franchise Opportunities, Franchise For Sale, SmallBusinessStartup.com and BusinessBroker.net, and together they provide the largest aggregation of prospective franchise buyers in the U.S.

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Published on Wednesday, July 21st, 2021.