Population increase, proletarianisation and poverty

Abstract

The development of population in Sweden after 1750 did not differ greatly from that of the rest of north-western Europe: there was rapid growth, especially after 1810, which was accompanied by a change in social stratification among an agrarian population that in the early eighteenth century had still consisted of a fairly homogeneous peasant class. A landless proletariat gradually came into being; whereas in 1750 landless families accounted for only 20 per cent of the fanning population, by 1350 they accounted for 50 per cent.