The contract-labour system in agriculture (the statare system) is often depicted as a typical and important characteristic of the large-scale farms that evolved in Sweden during the agricultural transformation. However, we know relatively little about the preconditions for the appearance, proliferation and decline of the statare system. Consequently, we lack knowledge of one important part of the modernisation of Swedish agriculture and national economy.
This project analyses the efficiency and importance of the statare system in labour recruitment on estates in Skåne, from the first appearance of the system in the early 19th century until its abolition in 1944. Based on institutional economic theory, the contract-labour system is analysed in relation to the character of and changes in manorial production. The focus is on the contrast between, on the one hand, existing concepts of production and institutions and, on the other hand, technological change and changes in the demand for manorial products and the supply of labour. The contract-labour system is regarded as one possible arrangement of the contractual relationship between employer and employee, and the analysis is directed towards its efficiency with reference to the recruitment of labour. This analysis is undertaken in a comparative perspective: the statare system is compared with alternative types of work organisation and forms of employment in agriculture in other Swedish regions and abroad. In the project empirical studies of manorial production and work organisation are combined with studies of the wage and employment conditions of the contract workers.