22 February 2017•Update: 22 February 2017
By Muhammed Ali Gurtas
ANKARA
2016 has been remarked on as a traumatic year following a long list of celebrity deaths and seismic political developments. However, in Turkey, people’s happiness levels rose, according to data released Wednesday.
More than six out of ten Turks described themselves as happy in a life satisfaction survey carried out by the Turkish Statistical Institution (TurkStat).
Despite having faced a brutal coup attempt, a testing economic climate and terrorism, 61.3 percent of Turkish people said they were happy -- an increase on the 56.6 percent who described themselves as happy in 2015.
In addition, the number of those who said they were unhappy fell to 10.4 percent last year. It had stood at 11.4 percent in the previous year.
Nearly 9,000 people aged 18 and over were questioned face-to-face across Turkey for the poll, which found women were happier than men and young people aged 18-24 were the happiest age group, with the 35-44 bracket being the unhappiest.
Married people were happier than their single counterparts -- 64.7 percent to 53.5 percent.
The aspect of life that made most people happiest was being healthy, which was cited by 72.1 percent of respondents. Family was named by 70.2 percent.
A slightly higher number of people were optimistic about the future compared to 2015 -- 76.8 percent last year against 74.4 percent in the previous 12 months.
