A representative profile of 100 people in Turkey
What kind of image emerges if we take a representative sample of 100 people over the age of 18 living in Turkey?
If there were just 100 people living in this country, what kind of “community” would emerge?
Imagine 100 people – with all their different education, income, habits, experiences and practices - living together in the same place.
Research company Konda recently published a study condensing Turkey’s 56,000,000 population above the age of 18 to 100 people based on polling, reports and open source figures from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK).
Five people illiterate
Of course, for starters 50 of us would be women, and 50 of us would be men.
Sixteen of us would have a university degree or above; 29 of us would be a high school graduate; and the remaining 55 people would have “under high school degree.” Five of those 55 people would be illiterate.
Some 70 people would be married, 24 would be single, one would be divorced, one would be engaged, and four would have lost our partners. Some 35 people out of the 70 would have had an arranged marriage, 29 would have married after meeting our partner elsewhere, and six of us would be married unwillingly.
Among us, 56 people would earn between 700 and 2,000 Turkish Liras per month. Some 36 people’s income would be between 2,000 and 5,000 liras. Four people’s income would be under 700 liras and four would be above 5,000 liras.
Among us, 43 people would be in work and 57 would not be working.
Among the 43 working people, 10 would be laborers, seven would be tradesmen, eight would be in the private sector, four would be farmers, five would be state officials, and two would be self-employed.
What about those not working?
Some 31 of them would be housewives, eight would be students, 12 would be retired, six would be looking for work.
Meanwhile, if we were all living in the same giant apartment building, there would be Turks in 80 flats, Kurds in 13 flats, Arabs in three flats, Zazas in one flat, and “other” friends in the other three flats.
In the flats, 92 people would be Sunnis, nine would be Alevis, and two would be Muslims from other sects. I wish good luck to the remaining one non-Muslim.
Some 47 people regularly perform their prayers and 54 fast during Ramadan. But if you ask them, 74 people would claim that they “fulfil all religious duties.” Three would be atheists or unbelievers.
Some 26 people identify themselves as “modern,” 46 say they are “traditional conservative,” and 28 say they are “religious conservative.”
Only nine of the 50 women are in work. Clearly, dreaming of becoming a “global state” while integrating only one in five women into working life is rather incredible...
Some 50 people have Facebook accounts, 28 have Instagram accounts, and 20 are on Twitter. Some 72 people have Internet access and 73 people have smart phones.
Only eight of the 100 people have a passport and 11 people are able to go on vacation abroad.
Five are habitual evening drinkers, 16 drink occasionally, and 79 say they never drink alcohol.
Nineteen people celebrate New Year
Just 19 people celebrate New Year. Nine people went to a concert within the last three months and 29 people went to the cinema. Thirty people “never” read a book but 25 claim that they read many books.
Apparently, our best friend is the television. Some 71 people say they trust the TV when it comes to reporting news. Twelve people trust websites, seven people trust social media, and only 10 people are left saying they trust newspapers.
A six-minute video containing other information is also available through the Konda website.
I’ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions. All I’ll note is that in the education system the path was recently cleared for the religious Ensar Foundation to expand its activities. Hopefully that will solve all our problems, God willing.