The demographic argument in the genesis of the Swedish Welfare State

Which role played the demographic argument in the advent of the Swedish Welfare State ? The article studies the main thesis of the book Kris i befolkningsfragan (1934) by Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, which prepare the discursive ground of demography in Sweden. Compromising the predominance of an hygienism with biologist leanings and introducing a discussion about family policy within Swedish social democracy, its influence on reforms was limited before the war. The advent of Welfare State in the middle of the 1950s is explained rather by socio-economic factors than by demographic arguments. However, after 1970, the intense demographic debate launched by the Myrdal's in the 1930s with their ''practical radicalism" underlied the important family policy reforms: parental leaves, spread of the public pre-school system, etc.