Pearl - “Young Women Want CAREERS and STATUS Before They Want Children” @JustPearlyThings

00:00:00.000 but what about those who haven't had kids yet is it on their radar could they even imagine raising

00:00:04.800 a family here in inner london hi everyone students jess emily and millie all in their early 20s and

00:00:10.880 living in islington were happy to have a chat it was never something i worried about but now i'm

00:00:15.120 kind of like oh i need to make sure i'm like settled and can afford that if that's something

00:00:18.320 i want in the future obviously that's very stressful at the moment with like cost of living 1.00

00:00:21.520 and where the job market is we definitely do want to have children it's women want to be higher 1.00

00:00:25.920 status when they have children and we'll only exchange youth in exchange for status because 1.00

00:00:31.440 that's how we survived is being high status in society and but kind of same thing at jess as

00:00:36.080 jess there's like a million and one things that i want to do first i want to have a career kind 1.00

00:00:40.640 of sounds like you've got so remember it's all in exchange for money power status that's what women

00:00:44.720 want money power status women don't want kids men want family some men want money power status but

00:00:50.480 they want a family more most of the time much to think about as it is the thought of even considering 0.94

00:00:55.440 having a family it feels like a whole other step that is perhaps overwhelming to think about at the

00:01:00.880 moment or it feels relevant do i want to bring someone else into that if i can't actually support

00:01:06.000 myself at this point when having conversations with but notice she doesn't look poor right so

00:01:12.080 i can't support myself how are you sitting at why aren't you working three jobs why are you sitting

00:01:16.320 in the park relaxing you know what i mean parents are parents and they'll you know slide in a little

00:01:21.920 comment about like oh what happens when you have children and then you get to say no it doesn't

00:01:26.480 have to happen i think one thing that became clear to me whilst making this film is how personal this

00:01:31.520 subject is but i've had some really honest conversations some people said they don't want

00:01:35.680 kids others say that they couldn't have kids some say they had them later than planned there isn't

00:01:41.600 one single reason basically a lot's going on here both socially and economically and i've been

00:01:47.840 working with the bbc's data team they're essentially the clever people who do the maths bit

00:01:52.880 and what we found is that in islington on average people spend almost half their salary on rent

00:02:00.400 homes are 12 times the average salary it has some of the longest social housing waiting lists in

00:02:06.160 the country and some of the country's highest child care costs factors like these are pushing

00:02:12.480 families out of inner london to outer london and beyond at the other end of that's the thing you 1.00

00:02:17.520 you can go to outer London but you lose status and so the women always fight to be in the high 0.99

00:02:22.520 status cities where men I've noticed it's just in people I know the men always want to live in 0.99

00:02:27.520 lower status places but are better for the children where the women want to push to be a

00:02:31.960 part of the high status places because you know like I was just in New York City I didn't even 1.00

00:02:36.620 know this but it was super crowded because of fashion week that's a high status thing you're

00:02:41.720 not really going to be able to do that it's going to be much more of a hassle to go to when you live

00:02:46.180 away from cities you know

Pearl - September 25, 2026