Boarded out by auction: poor children and their families in nineteenth-century northern Sweden

• Published in: Continuity and Change
• Main Author: ENGBERG, ELISABETH
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2004
• Subjects: General Social Sciences; History; Northern Sweden
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0268416004005223; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0268416004005223

Boarding out and fostering poor children was a favoured method of poor relief in many rural areas in northern Europe. This article discusses children who were boarded out to foster-parents by public auction in a rural parish in northern nineteenth-century Sweden. Poverty was the main reason why children were boarded out, frequently associated with loss of parents and difficulties in providing for a large household. It is suggested that the Swedish system of boarding out poor children must be understood in the context of a welfare system where cost efficiency was important. The auction method was used in spite of the risks involved because it was considered to be the best way to provide poor children with food, clothes, shelter and care, while keeping the compensation to the foster-parents at a reasonably low level.