Pearl - Families Are DISAPPEARING From London!

00:00:00.000 All right. What's up guys? Welcome to my reaction series. So today we are reacting to a video

00:00:04.800 titled why are families disappearing from London? This is totally true. I lived in London for three 1.00

00:00:09.120 years and, um, it's, I would say the norm is like having kids at 35 in London. I know the stats say

00:00:14.300 it's like 30. I think it's higher in that city just based on my experience living there. So

00:00:18.900 before I start guys, like the video and subscribe. Also, if you want, um, I'm doing a private event

00:00:24.340 in dallas october 2nd and 3rd it's on my website the audacitynetwork.com um slash events the link

00:00:30.540 is in the description basically friday night we're going to do a private dinner um the details we're

00:00:35.340 still ironing out but i want to do a podcast law of self-defense that's live so you guys get to

00:00:40.660 watch it with some burgers friday night and um the next day we're going to go to a gun range and also

00:00:46.180 a workout in the morning so if you get the vip you do the second day and then if people i don't

00:00:51.220 if people want to stay for two days or not but if you want to stay the whole weekend i think we'll

00:00:54.740 do a steak dinner that night also so anyways if you guys want to do it let me know and sign up

00:00:59.780 then okay so now we're gonna watch the video happening in this part of london fewer babies

00:01:05.380 are being born here than in almost any other part of the county i think this is close to where i

00:01:10.660 lived that sounds really familiar i have to look it up but i was east london i was in white chapel

00:01:16.260 do i want to bring someone else and i was in the darklands into that if i can't actually support

00:01:20.980 myself at this point we live in a one bedroom as well two kids so housing is bad there it's 0.57

00:01:27.220 really expensive immigration it totally jacks up the prices bedroom it would be a very strange city 1.00

00:01:34.020 without any families wouldn't it okay before we get into this i want to point out that fertility 0.98

00:01:39.140 rates that's the number of children that a woman is expected to have over her lifetime

00:01:43.780 are falling in other parts of the world in england and across inner london but i've come here

00:01:49.540 to islington because that trend is more extreme at 0.99 it's the lowest rate in the capital

00:01:56.980 apart from the city of london and one of the lowest in the country to put it in perspective

00:02:02.260 the rate in england and wales is 1.4 which is already down from 1.9 15 years ago the average

00:02:08.660 age of a mother in islington is also 34.7 the fourth highest in the country yeah sorry to

00:02:14.660 interrupt i would have guessed that i would have guessed that you're from bubble time i want to

00:02:18.660 find out what's really behind these numbers so i joined a zip zap baby music class in the borough

00:02:24.900 how have you found family life in islington crisis is a huge factor like it's increasing

00:02:29.860 um and renting us as well and even if we have good job we are not sure we could afford we

00:02:35.300 like that and taking it on the demand second child we know that we need to move out of london

00:02:39.860 it's kind of crazy because in america they all say they can't afford to have kids but then there's

00:02:44.260 some tut like some tut hut in africa and there's like seven kids lived out of there so i don't know

00:02:50.180 why women are kind of spoiled we're the most spoiled you know demographic making the decision

00:02:54.420 to move back to luxembourg yes exactly uh luxembourg is a country when child care is free this is my 0.98

00:03:00.180 first and i was 41 when i first had her it's difficult for women to know when the right time

00:03:05.940 is to have a baby and and so i think you want to sort of reach like the pinnacle of your career

00:03:12.580 um before maybe like venturing down that path i was 35 so i had her a bit later um so it was

00:03:19.860 too cool it was intentional because i was moving forward to my career and i was really really

00:03:23.380 focused on that um and then when we started to try no one tells you how hard it actually is

00:03:28.980 are you a local dad in the area yeah yeah i am yeah what do you think the big challenges are

00:03:33.460 then in living in islington as a family we live in a one bedroom as well two kids so our living

00:03:39.300 room becomes our bedroom our one bed becomes the kids room and you know it's one of those things

00:03:44.500 where you just have to juggle and make use of space but um you know isn't it's a very lovely

00:03:49.620 area to live in it's great you see how he sees the positive and the women just complain he's like

00:03:53.860 well it's a nice area but because of that it's really expensive to live in this world but what

00:03:59.460 about those who haven't had kids yet is it on their radar could they even imagine raising a

00:04:04.100 family here in inner london hi everyone students jess emily and milly all in their early 20s and

00:04:10.100 living in islington were happy to have a chat it was never something i worried about but now i'm

00:04:14.340 kind of like oh i need to make sure i'm like settled and can afford that if that's something

00:04:17.540 i want in the future obviously that's very stressful at the moment with like cost of living 1.00

00:04:20.740 and where the job market is we definitely do want to have children it's women want to be higher 1.00

00:04:25.100 status when they have children and we'll only exchange youth in exchange for status because 1.00

00:04:30.740 that's how we survived is being high status in society and but kind of same thing at jess as jess

00:04:35.800 there's like a million and one things that i want to do first i want to have a career kind of sounds

00:04:40.300 like you've got so but remember it's all in exchange for money power status that's what 0.92

00:04:43.780 women want money power status women don't want kids men want family some men want money power

00:04:49.240 status but they want a family more most of the time much to think about as it is the thought of 1.00

00:04:53.800 even considering having a family it feels like a whole other step that is perhaps overwhelming to

00:04:59.480 think about at the moment or it feels relevant do i want to bring someone else into that if i can't

00:05:04.680 actually support myself at this point when having conversations with grandma notice she doesn't look

00:05:09.960 poor right so i can't support myself how are you sitting at why aren't you working three jobs why

00:05:15.160 Why are you sitting in the park relaxing?

00:05:17.200 You know what I mean?

00:05:17.900 Parents are parents.

00:05:19.560 And they'll, you know, slide in a little comment about like,

00:05:21.860 oh, what happens when you have children?

00:05:23.260 And then you get to say, no.

00:05:25.340 It doesn't have to happen.

00:05:26.580 I think one thing that became clear to me whilst making this film

00:05:29.520 is how personal this subject is.

00:05:31.500 But I've had some really honest conversations.

00:05:33.620 Some people said they don't want kids.

00:05:35.500 Others say that they couldn't have kids.

00:05:37.940 Some say they had them later than planned.

00:05:40.020 There isn't one single reason.

00:05:42.680 basically a lot's going on here both socially and economically and i've been working with the

00:05:47.640 bbc's data team they're essentially the clever people who do the maths bit and what we found

00:05:53.560 is that in islington on average people spend almost half their salary on rent homes are 12

00:06:00.600 times the average salary it has some of the longest social housing waiting lists in the country

00:06:06.440 and some of the country's highest child care costs factors like these are pushing families out of

00:06:12.520 inner london to outer london and beyond at the other end that's the thing you can go to outer 0.99

00:06:17.640 london but you lose status and so the women always fight to be in the high status cities 0.99

00:06:22.360 where men i've noticed it's just in people i know the men always want to live in lower status places 0.84

00:06:27.960 but are better for the children where the women want to push to be a part of the high status

00:06:32.120 places because you know like i was just in new york city i didn't even know this but it was super 1.00

00:06:37.340 crowded because of fashion week that's a high status thing you're not really going to be able

00:06:41.540 to do that um it's going to be much more of a hassle to go to when you live away from cities

00:06:46.240 you know gail london's highest fertility rates almost double islington's are in barking and

00:06:51.820 dagenham redbridge and hillingdon we are already seeing the impact of fewer children schools are

00:06:58.140 closing, maternity units are closing, key workers are leaving the city, which has an impact on

00:07:02.840 the workforce and the economy. But what does that tell us about the direction that a city is heading

00:07:08.780 in? If you have a hollowing out of children, it has all kinds of impacts on different urban

00:07:14.440 institutions. So there's a kind of a famous saying in urban design and urban planning,

00:07:20.040 like children are an indicator species. If you see children on the sidewalks, in streets, going in

00:07:25.480 and out of schools and parks and playgrounds, that's a sign of a healthy city. If you see a

00:07:30.240 dearth of children in the city, that rings alarm bells that this city is not healthy, it's not

00:07:35.840 functioning the way it should. We need to tackle this as an absolute emergency. If that continues

00:07:40.600 on the current projections, we'll see a donut effect where we've got virtually no children

00:07:44.240 left in inner London and only in the outer boroughs. That would be an existential challenge

00:07:49.360 for London. The mayor says he's tackling these pressures by increasing affordable housing,

00:07:53.720 funding free school meals and supporting public services the government says they've improved 0.98

00:07:58.880 parental leave rolled out 30 hours but see this is what i mean women are complaining about a

00:08:04.400 problem and society tries to fix it but women are never going to be happy we have more options for

00:08:09.200 women than ever houses are cheaper in the country than ever you can work from home there's a lot of

00:08:13.100 choices to have kids and we just don't like kids that much unfortunately unfortunately you know 0.92

00:08:18.500 funded child care a week and are building more council homes this isn't just a story about the

00:08:24.040 number of babies being born it's about child care housing work money and the choices that people

00:08:31.040 feel they can or can't make the number of babies being born in islington is a snapshot of a why 1.00

00:08:37.820 i think this is really close that looks really familiar okay all right guys yeah bitches don't 0.99

00:08:43.040 want kids water is wet the sky is blue women hate their children i don't know how we convinced 1.00

00:08:48.240 to men that we like kids for this long so probably white guys they fall for everything sorry fellas

00:08:53.280 i love you like the video subscribe to the channel and i'll see you next time we're doing an event in

00:08:57.980 dallas so last weekend we had a new york city event um and i got to hang out and have dinner

00:09:02.360 with you guys so this next event i'll tell you what i'm thinking this is not set in stone but

00:09:06.920 this is what i'm thinking so friday night if you get the normal ticket you can hang out with me

00:09:12.080 um friday i'm thinking we're gonna do a live podcast with law of self-defense he's tentatively

00:09:18.720 verbally agreed so right now he's coming we're gonna do a podcast at an event space and i'm

00:09:26.080 thinking we'll bring the whiteboard and we'll do whiteboards on anything and anyone in the

00:09:29.360 audience can do whiteboards and then we'll do a debate i might have a liberal that's gonna show up

00:09:35.040 and then whoever loses the debate has to rip a shot and then the next day you guys can work out

00:09:40.880 with me if you get the vip work out with me and then we're gonna go shooting during the day with

00:09:46.000 vip you can't shoot me only only the target all right um and then at night we're gonna potentially

00:09:54.080 do a dinner if you guys want to stay two days i got to get some feedback on that but if you're

00:09:58.560 interested there's a google form in the description and there's also um you can just buy a ticket at

00:10:03.440 the audacitynetwork.com we call everybody that buys a ticket so if you ever change your mind

00:10:09.200 or you have questions this is beginning stages you got to bear with me but everybody we do call that

00:10:14.560 that buys a ticket.

Pearl - September 20, 2026

Families Are DISAPPEARING From London!

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