Personal Development Statistics of 2022

Stacey M. October 16, 2022 781 0

Personal development is a huge industry that includes thousands of businesses. Among them are books, online courses, workshops, personal coaching, and more.

Highlights:

The value of the self-improvement market is USD 43.77 billion.

Consumers in the US spent $32 million on self-care mobile apps

Millennials are ready to spend $300 per month on self-development products

There are many factors that drive the personal development market but probably the main are rising consciousness among individuals around the world and the desire to increase the level of life. Moreover, there is high competition for job positions in prestigious companies, and pressure from social media to become a better version of yourself.

Meanwhile, companies utilize self-improvement programs to enhance the productivity of their employees, quality of communication, and increasing their overall performance.

What is personal development?

By definition, self-development is a process of gaining new skills, changing yourself, or changing your life to improve its quality.

The personal development market includes such main segments:

Mental health
Self-awareness
Skillset enhancement
Motivation
Physical health

The main forms of personal development content are:

E-platforms, both mobile and web applications
Traditional books, audio- and e-books
Personal training
Workshops and other online events

So, let’s dive into some of the personal development industry statistics of 2022 and further to understand this market and its trends better.

Personal development industry stats

The value of the personal development market is USD 43.77 billion.

The personal development market size value is estimated at USD 43.77 billion in 2022 and it’s forecasted to be USD 67.02 billion by 2030. The expected growth rate is 5.5% from 2022 to 2030.

Having a revenue share of over 36%, North America is the leader in this industry.

The leader in this market is North America which had the largest revenue share of over 36% in 2021. This region is expected to remain the top player in the personal development market from 2023 to 2030. This is enhanced by a very high demand for personal development content on one side and utilizing advanced technology as a response. The most popular forms of self-improvement content in North America are online platforms, e-books, and audiobooks.

The books segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of over 7% from 2022 to 2030.

The demand for e-books and audiobooks is rising slowly replacing traditional books.

Millennials are the main self-development customers

Probably the main consumer of self-development products are millennials being ready to spend $300 per month on average on them (in North America). Also, about 75 million millennials worldwide use self-help services.

U.S. consumers spent $32 million on self-care mobile apps

U.S. consumers spent $32 million on self-care mobile apps (Calm, 10% Happier, Headspace, etc). The most popular Apple App Store categories as of the 2nd quarter of 2022 are Education (takes 3rd position with a share of 9.5%), Health&Fitness (8th position, 4.8%), and Productivity (9th position, 4.6%).

Next, let’s move to the most popular domains of the personal development industry.

Psychology and mental issues

Around 4% of the population had depression or anxiety disorder

The two most common mental health issues worldwide are anxiety disorders and depression. In 2019, around 4% of the global population had an anxiety disorder, while 3.6% suffered from depression. Rates of depression are higher among females than males, with some 4.3% of females suffering from depression, compared to 2.9% of men.

Stress management

With the high speed of life and high expectations within society, stress management has become quite a popular topic in many books and training. A job remains the most common reason for stress, especially for those who have managerial roles.

In 2015, U.S. adults reported such a result of stress as feeling nervous (42%), feeling irritable (37%), and feeling depressed (37%).

The most popular activities for managing stressful situations in the United States as of September 2020 are listening to music (57%), watching videos (48%), and exercising (40%).

Meditation

When it comes to mental issues and stress management, meditation is believed to be very effective. In 2019, the top 10 meditation apps generated up to $200 million.

14% of Americans meditate (CDC), and over 10% of the US adult population has tried meditation at some point in their lives.

Age groups of people that meditate are as follows: 18-44 (13.4%), 65+ (13.4%) and 45-64 years (15.9%). According to a report of 2017, 16.3% of women compared to 12% meditate.

A 2018 study showed that mobile apps were the most used way to practice meditation with books being the second and a course being the third.

Health and weight loss

Health and weight loss industries don’t lose the rising trend with the shift to online. The biggest market is North America with over of 97 million Americans having a major goal of losing weight.

The health, gym, and fitness club market is estimated at $37 billion.