Sweden is a Scandinavian country in the north of Europe, with bordering countries being Norway and Finland. It has a population of 9,658,301; a land area of 450 km2 and its capital city is Stockholm. Pro-natalist policies aim for more births and population growth, in a country with low fertility rate causing either zero or negative population growth. Sweden has been one of these countries where pro-natalist policies were introduced by the government because of rapidly decreasing fertility rates. In this case the decreasing population, will threaten the economy because of under population. This is when there are not enough people to fill all job spaces and so there is not enough support for economic development. .
Family policy measures were already introduced in the 1930s after low birth rates and emigration in the pre-war period. In 1927 net fertility rate fell below 1.0, lower than for most other European countries and consequently was a cause for concern.
In 1948 family allowances for all children were introduced to replace child tax allowances. In 1999 this was 750 SEK (83 euros) per month and child and it increased after the third child. This meant that every family however well of they were, got the same amount of money for each child. The goal of this was to increase the fertility rate by 25% and to improve the quality of child welfare in the next generation.
Sweden's crude growth rate as in 2013 was 7.7 with a fertility rate of 1.94. Looking at statistics it can be seen that more than two-thirds of the crude growth rate are due to immigration, with natural increase only accounting for 2.2 but net migration for 5.4. This shows how vitally important immigrants are to Sweden. However Sweden still passed their goal of increasing the fertility rate by 25%, this shows some success in the pro natalist policy over the past years. Sweden's program was hugely dependent on financial incentives and longer maternity leaves.
