The home and housewares industry has good reason to celebrate the International Housewares Association (IHA) Occasions and At-Home Entertaining Survey results for 2026. This year’s findings show home and housewares gaining momentum as preferred gifts across key life events — an encouraging trend for the industry.

The consumer landscape driving those celebrations is shifting. Gen Z is emerging as fully engaged buyers, exerting increasing influence on personal style and shopping. Millennials are immersed in adulthood — marriage, parenting, career development and home ownership — bringing with them steady life events that shape spending. Baby Boomers continue their progression into retirement, with the entire generation reaching age 65 or older by 2030, while Gen X enters the later stages of career and family life. With longer life spans and evolving living arrangements, intergenerational dynamics are shifting in ways that directly influence how consumers outfit their homes and commemorate life and other celebratory events in the years ahead.

The 2026 IHA Occasions and At-Home Entertaining Surveys, conducted for IHA by Morning Consult, offer the home and housewares sector a clear view into those opportunities, highlighting where product innovation, marketing strategy and merchandising can meet the needs of consumers navigating key life milestones.

The 2026 Occasions and At-Home Entertaining Reports, published exclusively by HomePage News, dig deeper into how retailers and suppliers can position themselves as critical resources for celebrations, large and small. These data-driven insights explore how consumer expectations around weddings, new home purchases, welcoming a child, sending kids off to college and retirement, as well as birthdays, anniversaries and casual gatherings that celebrate personal relationships.

Economic uncertainty inevitably shapes how people celebrate. Yet, as dissonance in the larger world rises, the home can become an even more valued refuge and the impulse to gather, celebrate and exchange gifts remains resilient. The IHA surveys demonstrate that consumers continue to adapt, blending tradition with new ideas to reinvigorate celebrations.

For the home and housewares industry, supporting these moments is not only a business opportunity, but it is also a privilege, best enjoyed with an understanding of how people are updating and enlivening their celebrations.

At-Home Entertaining Methodology
The 2026 IHA At-Home Entertaining Survey was conducted by Morning Consult between October 31 and November 2, 2025, among a sample of 2,226 adults. The interviews were conducted online and the data was weighted to approximate a target sample of adults based on age, gender, race, educational attainment, region, gender by age and race by educational attainment. Results from the subset have a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points, depending on the audience.