Divorce is now normalized in Turkey, and housing prices have skyrocketed

Turkey is no longer the mirror to look into: divorce and housing prices through the roof

The narrative that portrays Turkey as a country immune to Western ills is broken, according to one participant, by a simple fact: divorce there is now normalized, housing has skyrocketed and part of the younger generation has checked out of effort. The account comes from someone who says they have dealt with Turks in the course of business. And what they describe does not sound like deepest Anatolia, but like any Spanish city on a Tuesday morning.

The thesis of the message that opens the conversation is straightforward: it is not a Western thing. The same shift is happening in Asia. Divorce has been normalized, housing prices are crazy, an elite concentrates property and bleeds everyone else dry, and young people could not care less while grandma rows. The implicit conclusion is uncomfortable: if the phenomenon is global, the local explanation — governments, laws, culture — falls short.

Is Turkey an isolated case or the same pattern as Spain?

The answer that prevails in the exchange is that there is no Turkish exception. It is happening all over the world, one reply sums up, attributing the phenomenon to directives from higher powers. Another reformulates it without conspiracy: same inputs, same results. Fiat money, socialism and demagoguery produce misery. Housing goes up, according to this argument, because fiat money fails to store value and people seek shelter in tangible assets, while wages lag behind.

The Turkish detail that comes up most often is housing. Crazy prices and a property-owning caste that squeezes everyone else. It is not a different diagnosis from Spain's: the problem is not a shortage of bricks, it is who owns them and at what price they rent them out. The difference, if any, is one of degree, not of nature.

Young people who don't care and the grandma who rows

The second block of the diagnosis points to the youth. Young people don't care anymore — let grandma row. The phrase is harsh, but it connects with an argument that appears later: when working no longer pays off because life goals are out of reach, the rational response is to disengage. It is not laziness, it is calculation. If the average salary cannot buy a home or support a family, effort loses its meaning.

Some take the argument to the extreme and compare it with John Calhoun's Universe 25 experiment: when a population has guaranteed food, water and shelter but lives in a limited space with no clear social roles, behavior breaks down. The analogy has its limits, but it explains why the malaise is not measured only in euros.

The counterargument: immigration, tourism and pressure on housing

Not everyone accepts the parallel. A recurring objection is that Turkey does not bear the migratory pressure or the mass tourism that Spain suffers. The answer comes quickly: they have millions of Syrian refugees there and the situation is the same or worse. The figure is not disputed; it is used as proof that the problem is not immigration but the economic structure that turns any demand pressure into a price increase.

Tourism appears as a specifically Spanish variable: Turkey does not have 80 million annual visitors, but it does have an economy that has turned housing into a financial asset. The result is the same: those who do not inherit, do not buy.

The fiat money trap and the mirage of sovereignty

The most technical analysis in the exchange points to fiat money. Fiat money does not store value; it only works as a medium of exchange. That is why anyone wanting to preserve wealth in the long term buys tangible assets. This pushes everything up except wages. The conclusion is that housing is not expensive because of the apartments themselves; it is expensive because money is worth less and property works as a refuge.

A geopolitical layer is added to this. Some argue that the offshoring of companies, knowledge and wealth from the West to China turned the Asian giant into just another product of the international oligarchy, not a loose cannon. And others point out that Turkey and Iran are not technologically dependent countries: they develop fifth-generation fighter jets, their own turbines and hypersonic weapons. Calling them third-world countries is an analytical mistake.

What Turkey shares with Spain and what it does not

The balance of the exchange leaves a map of coincidences: normalized divorce, unaffordable housing, extractive elites, a demobilized youth. The differences are of degree and legal context. In Turkey, it is noted, the laws are harsher and you pay for what you do. In Spain, the feeling is the opposite.

The question left open is not whether Turkey resembles Spain, but whether the global pattern has any way out other than individual disengagement or the latest self-proclaimed savior. With these ingredients, the answer is not in the next headline. Or is it?