There are many factors that affect the development of social policy in a country, and the development of social policy in countries differs from each other. While social policy in Western countries is shaped by a joint effort by social policy actors, the dominant actor in the development of social policy in underdeveloped or developing countries is the state. In the Ottoman Empire, as a result of the state's intervention in social problems being prohibitive rather than protective, having the characteristics of an agricultural society and weak industrialization, social classes could not be born and strengthened. The absence of social classes could not create the necessary conditions for the emergence of social policy. In the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic of Turkey, there was a smooth transition rather than sharp changes in the economic and social fields. In this context, the state is the leading actor in the development of social policy in the Republic of Turkey, as it was in the Ottoman Empire. In Turkey, the development of social policy has been limited due to the problems that arose in the first years of the republic and in the following periods. This study, it is aimed to classify the historical development of Turkey's social policy in the 20th century according to certain periods and to reveal the main developments in social policy that took place in this period.