ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 383

Healthcare
The health of the population had improved over time in Istanbul, with a noticeable an increased
life expectancy and decrease in Infant Mortality Rate (IMR).Nowadays, health problems have been
raised by smoking and polluted environment. Medical services are well developed throughout
the city. Government run hospitals and clinics are operated by the (Red Cross), with the cheap
cost of services. As a result of making access to health services easier, initiation of general health
insurance system and improving the social and physical infrastructure, the number of applications to doctors reached 7.7 as of 2011 which were 3 in 2002.
Employment
As mention in Turkey 2014 report by (Karakas et al. 2014). A chain of regulations known as “employment packages” have been enact between 2006 and 2011 in order to raise employment and
reduce unemployment. According to these regulations, actions to decrease labor costs, raise the
employment of young population, women and disabled people, develop energetic labor programs, increase unemployment expenses, build up the relation between education and employment, decrease informal economy, assemble subcontractor relations and reduce the formalities
of preliminary a business enacted. Positive possessions of these reforms on employment are anticipated to increasingly continue in the forthcoming periods. Unemployment speed was 10.2 %
in 2006 reached to 14 % in 2009 as a outcome of the global economic crisis (Fig.4).

Figure 4: Unemployment rate between 1996-2011 (Karakas et al. 2014)
For effective and efficient implementation of active labor programs, job and vocational counseling was initiated for every unemployed person. In this context, 2,817 counselors started to work
in 2011. Labor participation rate, which was 53.9 % in 1992 decreased to 47.9 %until 2009, and started to raise in 2010 and reached 49.9 % in 2011. With the constitutional alteration in 2010, Economic
and Social Council was recognized and collective with community employees were enabled. This
provides an important opportunity for improving social dialogue and built up social consent for
labor peace.
Sustainability Package
Challenges
Sustainable social development is a complex concept (Weingartner and Barber 2010) made even
more so by the fact that there is no commonly agreed definition of sustainability. Istanbul is going throughout a process, in which international problems need international solutions. Today,
countries problems cannot be set aside within the limits; getting further than the boundaries,

Istanbul towards social sustainability: Istanbul’s social conditions and developments

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