Abstract:

Since 1960s, the use of GDP as an indicator of social welfare has been criticized intensively. With the 2008 economic crisis which impacts especially developed countries, it is proved that GDP demonstrates developed countries’ level higher and developing countries’ level lower than actual and it hides developed countries’ weaknesses and has limited ability to represent developing countries’ strengths. With clarifying the limits of GDP’s representation, beyond the economic growth, success of the community should be determined by the level of social development opinion has gained weight. At that point, Social Progress Index, one of the social development detection methods which increases social indicators’ numbers and weight and designed by Social Progress Imperative through discussion with academicians at Harvard University and MIT and international business communities, has attracted attention.Dissimilarity of Social Progress Index from similar studies are using lots of and a wide range of non-economic indicators to value social progress free of economic success and tree-tier design that provides societies an opportunity to detect weak and strong aspects of social progress. In this study, Social Progress Index model and Turkey’s profile as index dimension is analysed.

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