ABSTRACT
The new and imperative problem of population and family was presented to the Swedish people in the fall of 1934 in the framework of ideas set forth in preceding chapters. It was immediately grasped and discussed as a problem with the dimensions and content of a new social policy. From the beginning the discussion took cognizance of the magnitude of the changes involved, of the many different aspects of life that had to be harmonized, and of the need for conscious planning to supersede the automatic adjustments relied upon in the past. There was enough factual knowledge about demographic trends, especially about the prospects of impending decline in population, to give reality to the question whether something needed to be done. Less complete data, but still enough to make the challenge to social action concrete, had been compiled to show the effect which childbearing, even at a level below that required for stabilizing population, had on the plane of living of those families which had the children. It became public knowledge that the poverty of many Swedish families was due primarily to the fact that there were children in those families. Consequently, poverty was selective, and it particularly affected children.
