Özet:

While economic growth is generally measured by the size of national income, it is quite difficult to measured due to the differences in the economic, political and social structures of the countries. The ability to determine the levels of development requires the use of different human, social and cultural indicators along with economic indicators. The United Nations measures the level of development of a country through the Human Development Index. This index, along with the country’s income, also includes indicators related to education and health. In this study, the changes in the Human Development Index and sub-indicates of Turkey and the factors affecting the Human Development Index have been studied over the years. According to this, Turkey has recorded significant developments between 1990 and 2017 in terms of the Human Development Index and sub-indicators. The value of the Human Development Index, which was 0.579, in 1990, was 0.791 in 2017, with an increase of 36.6 per cent in 27 years. Turkey is ranked 64th among the countries with high human development with the value of 0.791 Human Development Index in 2017 and among 189 countries. The person per capita is 50 in terms of national income, 48 in terms of expected schooling year, 111 in terms of average schooling year and 66 in terms of life expectancy in birth. Turkey needs to invest in education and health, in addition to income, in particular in the field of education and health, in order to be able to increase the value of the Human Development Index and enter among countries with very high levels of human development. Furthermore, the fact that the data used in the calculation is far from up-to-date negatively affects the value of the Human Development Index.