Compulsory Child Labour: Parish Paupers as Indentured Servants in Finland, c. 1810–1920

Abstract

This article challenges the interpretations by Viviana Zelizer and Clark Nardinelli of bound labour by farmed-out parish pauper children. Using the case of Finland, supported by the example of Sweden, it is argued that the exploitation of parish pauper children may have increased in the nineteenth century due to increasing adoption of a monetary economy in the countryside. As the productivity of a growing child fell short of his or her consumption, while the poor relief authorities strove to keep the compensation for this as low as possible, peasant farmers solved the discrepancy by over-exploiting farmed-out children. In both countries a system of auctioning-out paupers was applied, with no principal difference made between children and adults. The Finnish and Swedish cases suggest that industrial child labour and bound labour by parish pauper children many have reflected a similar attitude to the children of both the poor and the labouring classes.

Unfree labour by free peasants: labour service in the Swedish and Finnish countryside, from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries

“…69 In addition, many peasant farmers made use of labour by parish paupers, young and old. 70 With its extensive resources, the large Vittskövle manor in Scania/Skåne offers an example of manor owners' rights over land and labour in nineteenth-century Sweden. With cereal prices rising, the manor increased its arable land by evicting large numbers of peasants from their holdings.…”

Utbildad eller utnyttjad? Fosterbarns arbete i svenska fosterhem 1860–1940

“…Etnologen Marianne Liliequist har i sin studie av nybyggarfamiljer i norra Sverige uppmärksammat hur föraktet mot fattigdom ledde till att fattiga utackorderade barn utnyttjades hårdare i arbete och behandlades mer illa än barn som arbetade inom sitt sociala nätverk (Liliequist 1994: 214-218). Historikern Marjatta Rahikainen har genom svenska och finska exempel visat att bönder var tvungna att exploatera fosterbarns arbetskraft om de alls skulle tjäna något på att ta fosterbarn från fattigvården (Rahikainen 2002).…”

“…Det urbana barnet hade många olika arbetsmöjligheter i det sena 1800-talets och det tidiga 1900-talets Sverige. Barn arbetade som försäljare, bud, de arbetade vid byggen, på marknader, i fabriker och många arbetarklassbarn var sysselsatta inom hemindustrin (de Coninck-Smith et al 1997, Rahikainen 2002. Långt ifrån alla stadsbarn hade någon form av anställning.…”