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Elizabeth's avatar

We don't appreciate young people. We lock them up to save granny, destroy their mental health and education,no bold policies around housing for years, dish out triple locks to older voters then insinuate young people are feckless and need national service! Ha ha ha and we wonder why the only people having kids are the ones on benefits and get handed everything on a plate. Then add on top they're paying for illegal immigrants while being told they're a disgrace because they won't fight for their country! 2 governments that have not made our kids a priority and you wonder why they've given up. It's time for some serious introspection and stop blaming young people.

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Rt Hon Steve Baker FRSA's avatar

Great work Neil. I hope you will consider exploring the Cantillon effects of credit expansion.

http://axiombtc.capital/honest

And you have my number.

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Alice England's avatar

I live in a very rural area in England and have 4 children, there are many pensioners here as folk tend to just stay here, rather than move away. The younger people that have children all have at least 3, one of them have 5 and is heavily pregnant.

I worked in child protection and what I found was the middle class people seemed to have less children if they lived in a city, some would them move to the countryside to start a family. The families that were consistently having lots of children were what would be classed as lower working class, reliant on benefits etc. these are just White adults. We all know certain immigrants have lots of children. They generally live in cities.

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Liz Ryan's avatar

Our branch GP surgery closed during the pandemic. It became difficult for a pregnant friend to get her antenatal checks. What remained of our bus service disappeared at around the same time.

The countryside is a harsh place for young mothers when the husband takes the only vehicle to work.

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Alice England's avatar

I agree, that’s why community is so important. I have a car and so help out if I can. Our bus service is rubbish so I do some shopping for the pensioners next door.

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Liz Ryan's avatar

My friend moved away, to be nearer her parents. She said that during her pregnancy she found it comforting to have a neighbour she could call upon. I miss her.

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Biondo Flavio's avatar

Thanks for pursuing this issue.

One factor in falling fertility (not necessarily most relevant here, though I think it might play a role), which seems under-discussed, is the appalling state of maternity care in much of the country. The story in the Times over the weekend about Nottingham UH is ... well, there are no adequate words for it. Anecdotally (but how else would you capture this?) the experience lots of new parents have does put them off/prevent them from having more children/delay a second child.

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Louise  Brice's avatar

Thought-provoking read. I wonder how University towns impact the data. Some interesting surveys around about impact of perceived affordability: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2024/01/survey-insights-on-childlessness-and-childcare-in-uk.page

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Mike Chalmers's avatar

Folk that move out of cities do so as ‘white flight’ more often than not these days, when you see/hear about the state of our once great cities due to mass unchecked migration, you can’t blame them…. Once again our feckless politicians et al have a lot to answer for.

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