TL;DR: Rising productivity in other sectors raises relative wages, but productivity in care is flat or possibly declining due to increased regulation (laws requiring lower child-to-caregiver ratios)

The pet care topic is interesting because I barely recall hearing about pet care when I was younger. Everyone I knew who got a dog only did so if they were in a position to leave it with friends or family locally while they travelled.

Then it felt like something changed (quite possibly my social circles and I just noticed different things) and then people were getting dogs and spending a lot of money on dog boarding while they travelled. I have multiple friends who have okay paying jobs but live in HCOL cities and also have dogs. The amount of money they spend on pet care facilities when they travel is a number so high I struggled to believe it at first.

Even weirder to me is the trend of sending your dog to pet care one dog a week for socialization. I know one friend who works from home, but they take their dog to dog care once a week to get a break and socialize the dog.

So I think another component of this is just demand: The number of people willing to pay for these services is going up and it’s becoming more normalized to do so.