INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATON TECHNOLOGIES (ICT) AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: A SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT INDEX RECOMMENDATION FOR TURKEY

Social development is a vital element of sustainability. However, the fact that it is a wide-ranging and dynamic field makes the measurement of the concept difficult, and it reveals the need for updating its content depending on the developments. In the literature, social development has generally been measured with dimensions such as education, health, and gender equality. Today, however, technological indicators have become a part of social development and there is a need to prepare a new social development index to which information and communication technologies (ICT) are added. In this study, an index of social development including the ICT dimension were prepared and index calculations for Turkey were performed. There are twelve variables under four dimensions, namely ICT, education, health, and gender equality, in the index covering the years 2008–2020. Principal Component Analysis was used in the index calculation. The results of the analysis revealed that the values of the social development index in Turkey increased over time. However, the increase in social development needs to be continued. For this, more importance should be given to the dissemination of information and communication technologies, increasing the education level of the society, facilitating access to health services, and ensuring gender equality.