The Agrarian History of Sweden: From 4000 BC to AD 2000 by Janken Myrdal & Mats Morell

Author:Janken Myrdal & Mats Morell [Myrdal, Janken]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
Published: 2011-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 5.3 The national output of milk, beef, pork, and eggs by farm type and size, 1924–7 and 1937–8 (per cent). The smaller farms’ and small-holdings’ share of total agricultural output rose in the inter-war period, and smaller farms dominated milk, pork, and egg production. Sources: Höijer 1931 and SCB 1941.

The household and the division of labour on family farms and small-holdings

On smaller farms, the members of the household were the main work-force. The nuclear family had long dominated amongst farming families, but many families underwent a life cycle in which they became extended families for short phases. This meant that the retiring generation remained on the farm.20 In southern and central Sweden at the end of the 1930s it was common for the older generation to retain the farmhouse and live there until their deaths, while the farm was leased out to a farming son or son-in-law. In northern Sweden, farmers generally retired from farming during their lifetime, but often lived on at the farm until their deaths. Here the practicalities were often solved by the new farming couple formally undertaking to provide for the older generation’s accommodation and upkeep for life.21

Even though since 1845 the right of inheritance had been equal between all children, it was usual for one child, commonly the eldest son, to be chosen to take over the farm and to buy out his siblings at a price well below market value (see p. 122). Larger farms in particular developed strategies to keep the farm together in the family’s or the wider family’s possession.22

Most farmers had some kind of permanent hired labour, primarily unmarried farm-hands and maids, usually employed by the year and paid in the form of free lodging, food, and sometimes work-clothes, shoes, and small cash wages. The servants lived more or less on top of the farmer’s family and were members of the household. Even at the start of the twentieth century, the maids often slept in the kitchen, although by this time the farm-hands normally had moved out to separate quarters in a different wing of the farm courtyard. The farm-hands and maids ate at the farmer’s table, and shared his food. However, in southern Sweden, especially Skåne, there was an increasing distance between servants and their master and mistress.23

The number of maids and farm-hands dropped quickly. In 1874, farm-hands on board and lodging made up nearly half of all men employed in agriculture, not including crofters; by 1910–30 they made up only one-sixth of a rapidly dwindling population of agricultural workers. The maids were more numerous than the farm-hands, but their numbers dropped at much the same rate until 1930, after which they disappeared more quickly than the men. The background to this was changes to the labour market and the increase in other possible livelihoods.24

For most of them, their years as a farm-hand or a maid were only the preliminaries of their working lives. Farmers’ children who were superfluous at home entered the service of others, but still had hopes of taking over the parental farm or marrying into a farm elsewhere.

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