Barnarbete under omdaningens århundrade : En studie av barnarbetets ut- och avveckling på landsbygden och i städer inom några av de svenska fabriksbranscherna

Sammanfattning

This paper analyses the growth and decline of child labour, and the causes of these changes, in the Swedish factories during the period 1830 to 1890. By studying the textile and paper factories in the cities and on the countryside through the records of the Kommerskollegium’s annual reports on the nation’s factories, this study has shown that the evolution of the size and basis for change of child labour were more nuanced and complex than previously shown. Not only between different industries and periods of time, but also whether the factory was in a city or on the countryside. For much of the 1800s, child labour was on the rise in the Swedish factories regardless of industry or location. Towards the end of the century however, child labour slowly faded away. Generally, the transition from growing to shrinking child labour was believed to have occurred during or around the 1850s, but this study has shown that not to be the case in every industry branch. It varied between the early 1840s to the late 1880s, in some sectors, with repeated growths and declines rather than a single cycle. The frequently accepted explanation for the evolution of child labour in the factories during this period has been that children’s profitability caused the expansion and regression of the use of children as labourers. Mechanisation, during its development, made children profitable because they allowed factories to better compete with other industries and when mechanisation was fully implemented it made children unprofitable, as their low wages no longer made up for the potential profits of employing an adult worker. This paper has shown this to be only a part of the truth, and varyingly so. Legislation against child labour, and poverty, also explained certain aspects of the evolution of child labour, and together with mechanisation gives a more complete picture of what determined the rise and fall of children in the factories. The process was not uniform, however, and different parts of the industries experienced different trends at different times. In conclusion, this paper attempts to study and explain the evolution of child labour in the Swedish factories. It shows that the story of child labour during the century of change was not one single story, but a plethora of different routes and causes. The study highlights how multiple theories can help explain different parts of the larger puzzle.