Sweden in 1930 and the 1930 census

Abstract

The primary goal of censuses has always been to collect reliable information on the state’s population and provide a basis for governmental decision-making. This study examines the categories used in the 1930 census and links them to the context in which they were generated. We treat the census as a tool of state power, which can be discerned from the definitions of its categories and the way in which statistics are collected and used. The guiding question of the study was “how does the 1930 census differ from previous censuses and how can these differences and changes be explained?” We find that as in earlier censuses, Statistics Sweden used extracts from the parish books on the individual level to collect information for the 1930 census, but also used diverse supplementary sources including tax registers, income tax returns and language surveys. Thus, unlike in most countries, Sweden did not send out census takers or questionnaires to the population. Many of the new or updated variables we see in the 1930 census such as income, wealth, and number of children born, can be related to the political and social debate concerning the poor working class and the establishment of the welfare state. The inclusion of categories such as ethnicity, religion, and foreign nationality can be seen as part of a normative approach wanting to control, monitor and correct deviant elements of the Swedish population.

Sweden has several extraordinary longitudinal population databases built on the country’s excellent parish registers dating back to the 18th century. While the Swedish censuses have rarely been used as sources of data for historical analysis, this work demonstrates that the 1930 census has great potential to support new research.

Keywords:

• Sweden
• history
• population statistics
• censuses
• 1930 census
• demography

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1. In 2011 the Encoding and linking Swedish Censuses (SweCens) project was financed by a planning grant from the Swedish Research Council. The second stage of the project (SweCens II) began in 2014. It is a collaborative undertaking, with participants from the Swedish National Archives, Umeå University, the University of Gothenburg, Lund University, and the Stockholm City Archives. The overall aim of the SweCens project is to create a complete database of all Swedish censuses (1860–1950) in a format that will be accessible to the international scientific research community. It is being undertaken in collaboration with the Minnesota Population Center (MPC) and the North Atlantic Population Project (NAPP). The censuses of 1890 and 1900 are already available, 1880 and 1910 will soon be part of the NAPP. The main aim of the second phase (SweCens II) is to digitize the Swedish census of 1930 and encode it into a database infrastructure that will support cutting edge demographic research in social science and the humanities. Read more at: https:/riksarkivet.se/swecens. This article is not a data description of the digitized 1930 census and will not describe the process of digitizing the census or analyse its contents.

^2. Sweden's population statistics are a unique source because they provide remarkably thorough demographic information going back to such an early date. The statistics enable demographic studies to be conducted with different perspectives on the local and regional levels, focusing on pre-industrial society and the initial phases of industrialization and urbanization. Parish statistics from almost 2500 parishes have been digitized by the Demographic Data Base at Umeå University, Sweden, covering information on every part of the country from the north to the south. The digitized parish statistics make it possible to study fertility, mortality, nuptiality, and migrations from a historical point of view and to stratify the historical population by sex, age, civil status and social status. The pre-printed forms, in which the local priest entered the parish statistics, were initially referred to as tables. There were two types of forms to be filled in: mortality tables and population tables. The mortality tables contained information on births, deaths, causes of death, and other demographic events, recorded by sex and age group, for all parishes in the country. The population tables provided information on population structure, including individuals' marital status and occupation, along with data on other variables such as the number of households of a given economic status within the parish. Completed mortality tables were submitted to Tabellverket annually, and population tables every fifth year (Edvinsson, 2000, p. 245; Sköld, 2004). See: http://www.ddb.umu.se/english/database/the-database-tabverk/

^3. In the capital Stockholm a special census was conducted in 1860, in which information was gathered from special household lists rather than parish records. In 1880, information on the residents of Stockholm was collected at the same time as the tax registration was conducted (mantalsskrivningen). During the 1910 census of Stockholm, the bulk of the census data was obtained from tax sheets (mantalslängderna). The Gothenburg censuses of 1870 and 1880 were performed using the same methods as were used in Stockholm during the corresponding period. However, in 1883 the city was divided into territorial parishes with reliable parish registers, and was therefore subsequently censused in the same way as other parts of Sweden (Wicksell, 1922, p. 29).

^4. In this article we translate län to ‘county’. Another possible translation is province; see for example Brändström, Edvinsson, and Rogers (2000).

^5. Northern part of Sweden was defined as follows:

Norrbotten County (län): Haparanda and all rural municipalities other than Hortlax, Piteå rural municipality, Norrfjärden, Älvsbyn, Nederluleå and Töre;

Västerbotten County: Malå, Stensele, Sorsele, Tärna, Vilhelmina, Dorotea and Åsele; and Jämtland County: the Sami parishes of Frostviken, Hotagen, Undersåker and Tännäs. The study was conducted in different ways in these different areas (Statistiska Centralbyrån, 1937a, p. 49).

^6. A Sami village – Lappby – was an administrative and financial union tied to an extensive area of land along an annual reindeer migration route (Brännlund, 2015).

^7. The 1910 census was conducted using the so-called kartolin method, in which all the census data were transcribed on to special cards. Conversely, from the 1920 census the Hollerith system was used, whereby data were transferred to special punch cards for electronic sorting and compilation (Wicksell, 1922, p. 37).

^8. Folkräkningen den 31 december 1930. Stockholm: Kungl. boktryckeriet. P.A. Nordstedt & söner, 1935–1939, 9 volumes. (Sveriges officiella statistik. Folkmängden och dess förändringar.) The nine volumes were: I. Areal, folkmängd och hushåll inom särskilda förvaltningsområden m.m. befolkningsagglomerationer [Area, population, and households, within special administrative districts, etc. Population agglomerations], 1935, 312 pages and folded map. II. Bygdeindelning. Folkmängden efter ålder, kön och civilstånd. Inrikes omflyttning (inkl. fördelning efter födelseort) [Territorial classification. Population by age, sex, and civil status. Internal migration (incl. distribution by place of birth)], 1936a, 297 pages and a folded map. III. Folkmängden efter yrke, inkomst och förmögenhet: 1 avd. [Population by occupation, income, and wealth: Part 1], 1936b, 553 pages. IV. Utrikes födda. Utländska undersåtar. Lyten. Arbetsoförmåga [Foreign born. Aliens. Disabilities. Person unable to work], 1936c, 87 pages. V. Trosbekännelse. Främmande stam. Främmande språk m.m. [Religion. Foreign tribe. Foreign language, etc.], 1937a, 220 pages and a folded map. VI. Hushåll. Skolbildning. Yrkesväxling. Biyrke m.m. [Households. Education. Changes in occupation. Secondary occupations, etc.], 1937b, 211 pages. VII. Folkmängden efter yrke, inkomst och förmögenhet: 2 avd. [Population by occupation, income, and wealth: Part 2], 1937c, 303 pages. VIII. Folkmängden efter yrke, inkomst och förmögenhet: 3 avd. [Population by occupation, income, and wealth: Part 3], 1938, 185 pages. IX. Äktenskap och barnantal [Marriage and number of children], 1939, 150 pages and a folded map. Retrieved 20 October 2014 from: http://www.scb.se/Grupp/Hitta_statistik/Historisk_statistik/_Dokument/SOS/Folkrakningen_1930_1.pdf.

^9. In Crisis in the Population Question (Kris i befolkningsfrågan) the Myrdals discuss the consequences of continued low birth rates in Sweden, which they feared would lead to a decline in population, reduce productivity, and lower the standards of the population. In the book they advocate a series of social reforms to overcome this problem (Myrdal & Myrdal, 1934). However, this debate concerning the population question and the birth rate contributed to the implementation of the Befolkningskommissionen (Population Commission) (1935–1938). The Commission's intention was to investigate the cause of the declining birth rate and its effects, and resulted in a large number of social policy reforms by the end of the 1930s and early 1940s, with the aim of stimulating and promoting nativity (Kling, 2007, p. 10; Wisselgren, 2005, pp. 25–26, 32).