Turkey is becoming a country of unhappy people

Serkan Alan/ DUVAR

Based on data gathered from the OECD, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum and a number of other international institutions, the main opposition Republican People's Party has prepared a report containing troubling news about the current state of the country, of which the happiness level of its citizens has dropped considerably in the past two years. 

According to the report, in 2017, Turkey was the 69^th happiest country in the world, but that decreased to the 79^th as of 2019. It indicated that out of 41 OECD countries, Turkey experiences the most discrimination. Out of 163 countries, Turkey was ranked 144^th in terms of society security, putting it in the category of unsafe countries. 

Meanwhile, Turkey ranked 78^th out of 132 countries in terms of people who reported being afraid of being physically attacked for their ethnicity or religious beliefs. The country ranked 129^th out of 149 countries in terms of religious freedom. Regarding gender equality, Turkey was 130^th out of 153 countries surveyed, falling behind Tunisia and Nigeria. 

As it has been reported frequently, Turkey has been experiencing a notable phenomenon of brain drain in recent years. Between 2016-2018, 320,000 thousand people left Turkey for other countries and the number of millionaires, entrepreneurs, and businesspeople was in the 25-30,000 range. Despite being the 19^th largest economy in the world, Turkey ranked 49^th out of 129 countries on the Global Innovation Index, with its score on innovation a dismal 37 out of 100. 

During the tenure of the ruling Justice and Development Party, the quality and access of education in the country has deteriorated, as Turkey ranks the worst out of the OECD countries in terms of inequality and injustice regarding access to education. 

After Thailand and Argentina, Turkey was determined to have the worst retirement system of the OECD countries, while in 2018 of 35 OECD countries in 2018, Turkey experienced the highest inflation in food prices. 

While Turkey ranked 50^th out of 126 countries in 2007 in terms of judicial independence, it fell to 104^th by 2019, as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has cast an increasingly strong hold over the country's courts. The country's rankings also fell to dismally low levels in terms of press freedoms, and Turkey has the most jailed journalists in the world after China. 

Internet freedom also remains a dire issue in Turkey, as the number of internet sites that have been blocked in the country have increased by 258 percent in the last four years.