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CHAPTER XI.

WORKMEN'S INSURANCE IN SWEDEN.

CHAPTER XI.

WORKMEN'S INSURANCE IN SWEDEN.

INTRODUCTION.

From the earliest times Sweden has been very largely an agricultural country. Although the occupations of the people have been undergoing changes along the same lines as have been apparent in other countries, changes which have brought about the increasing proportion of the industrial at the expense of the agricultural element and the concentration of the population in the cities, still it is only within the most recent years that these changes have been very marked. It is true, of course, that mining has for centuries occupied an important place, but the number of workmen engaged therein has been comparatively small, being at the beginning of the present century less than one-third of 1 per cent of the population. Up to the last few decades the mechanical industries occupied a subordinate position, chiefly due to the lack of coal and the costliness of its importation. In recent years, however, the scientific development of water power, so abundant in Sweden, has had the effect of greatly increasing the proportion of the population engaged in manufacturing industries; in fact, the proportion has more than doubled within the last three or four decades. The following table shows the relative growth of the main classes of occupations since 1870:

NUMBER AND PER CENT OF PERSONS ENGAGED IN EACH SPECIFIED CLASS OF OCCUPATIONS, 1870, 1880, 1890, AND 1900.

[Source: Statistisk Tidskrift, Kungl. Statistiska Centralbyrån.]

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With regard to the concentration of the population in the cities, the percentage of urban population in Sweden is still very much below that of western Europe generally, as is shown by the following table of the growth of urban population during the nineteenth century.

PER CENT OF THE POPULATION OF SWEDEN LIVING IN CITIES, BY TWENTY-YEAR PERIODS, 1820 TO 1900.

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The result of the conditions outlined above is that the problem of the protection of the working classes has never come into such prominence in Sweden as in the more pronounced industrial populations of western Europe. Up to the last decade of the nineteenth century the legislation on the subject was scant and fragmentary, and even the present legislation rests largely on the old bases. The principle of compulsory insurance, so widely applied now in other countries, has not yet received legislative sanction in Sweden, except for government employees.

The general question of workmen's insurance was first taken up by the Government in the year 1884. On May 11 of that year a member of the Lower House of the Swedish Parliament introduced a resolution in that body requesting the Government to consider the question "whether and to what extent means could be found to regulate the relations between employers and employees in the matter of accidents to workmen and in provisions for old age for the latter, and whether the Government could introduce a bill in the Parliament providing for such regulation." In response to this resolution a committee known as the workmen's insurance committee was appointed by the Government on October 3, 1884. This committee prepared a report on workmen's insurance in foreign countries and introduced a number of bills looking to the protection of workmen, an account of which will be given under their separate heads. In spite of the fact, however, that the general problem was thus taken up twenty-five years ago, the Government's endeavors at a general solution of the problem have so far failed in that a unified system of workmen's insurance has not yet been attained in Sweden. It will therefore be most convenient for the purpose of the present report to consider the results so far attained under their various special heads, giving under each subject a history of the conditions that have led up to the present status thereof, and of the various attempts at legislation that have been made.

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