Abstract
Students of social history have focused upon the household as a subject for research for several decades now, and household structure has figured prominently in discussions on the Western European demographic system. One aspect of household structure is how it has varied in size between regions and countries and over time. Mean household size (MHS) is important for our general understanding of social and cultural change. A researcher can also use the MHS to reconstruct population figures for periods that lack formal population statistics, yet still have data on household numbers. Multiplying the MHS by the number of households can thereby give an estimated population size. The aim of this article is to summarize what is known about the MHS of Sweden in the pre-industrial era, and to present some new empirical findings on the MHS and its distribution over time and geographically. At the same time we shall discuss some methological problems in calculating the MHS using Swedish source material.
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