How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too)

by David Goldman

Most of rural Turkey remains stuck in the thick mud of traditional society. A fifth of Turkish marriages are consanguineous (to first or second cousins), about the same level as in Egypt, despite the fact that Turkey’s GDP per capita is double that of Egypt. Traditional prejudice, it appears, prevents most Turkish women from working outside the home. Turkish women have lost rather than gained ground in economic life: only 22 percent of Turkish women sought employment in 2009, down from over 34 percent in 1988, despite better female education and a sharp drop in fertility, that is, better qualifications and greater opportunity. By contrast, 54 percent of South Korean women work. As smallholding agriculture shrinks, women who no longer can work on the family farm simply sit at home.21 Turkey’s official unemployment rate stands around 10 percent; adjusted for the underemployment of Turkish women, the unemployment rate would be above 25 percent.