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(13 June 1901 – 21 June 1985) was a Swedish politician. He was the leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and Prime Minister of Sweden from 1946 to 1969.

At the time of his death, Erlander's 23 years as Prime Minister was said to be a record: "the longest unbroken term in power of any modern head of government in a country that holds regular free elections". He is remembered in particular for his advocacy of "the strong society" (det starka samhället), a term he coined in the 1960s. As a concept, "the strong society" includes the sense of a strong public sector and Erlander's governments did much to develop the modern Swedish welfare state. His final government was responsible for constitutional changes which gave Sweden the unicameral parliament it has today. In foreign policy, Erlander took Sweden into the United Nations and EFTA, and the steered the country through the first phases of the Cold War, maintaining (at least publicly) the country's neutral status.

Background and early life
He was born in Ransäter, in Värmland. His father, Erik Gustaf Erlander (1859–1936), was the village schoolteacher and local church organist, his mother Alma Nilsson (1869–1961) was the daughter of a farming family from Lysvik in the Fryksdal of Värmland. His father's father worked as a smith. There is some evidence that Erlander's ancestors were 'slash-and-burn Finns' (svedjefinnar), pioneers from Savolax in Finland who migrated to Värmland in the 1600s and opened up the landscape for farming through cutting and controlled burning of the undergrowth.

Tage Erlander was the third child of four with an elder brother, Janne (1893-1912), and two sisters, Anna (1894-1972) and Dagmar (1904-1988). The family was raised in the teacher's accommodation of the schoolhouse in Ransäter, a small apartment of three rooms and a kitchen on the upper floor of the building. He and his brother and sisters received their primary education in the school as pupils of their father. The building with both the school and the family's home is preserved as a part of the Erlander museum.

At Lund
Tage Erlander completed his secondary education at Karlstad, matriculating in 1920, and moved to Lund in the south of Sweden to attend university. At Lund he became engaged in a variety of student organsiations including the Mathematics Association (of which he was one of the founding members and first chairman) and the Lund branch of Värmlands Nation (of which he became president in 1923).

Raised by his father in a liberal and non-conformist tradition (his father was an admirer of Karl Staaf), Erlander was also drawn to the radical student movement. He became a member of the radical cultural and debating club DYG, eventually holding the post as president between 1925 and 1927. In the DYG he met "a group of students who used to air their socialist ideas" and it was among these fellow students he "developed into a brilliant speaker and an accomplished debater." By 1930 he had become a member of the Swedish Social Democratic Party.

His extensive extracurricular activities delayed his studies and he was not awarded his MA degree (in political science, economics and statistics) until 1928. After receiving his degree, Erlander became a member of the editorial staff of the encyclopedia Svensk Upplagsbok, a post he held from 1928 until publication of the first edition was completed in 1938. He also worked briefly as a journalist. In 1930 he married Aina Andersson, a student teacher. They met through the Mathematics Association. The following year he was elected to the city council of Lund, his first political post (and one he held until 1938).

In National Politics
In 1932 Tage Erlander was elected to the Second Chamber of the Riksdag as a Social Democrat and representative for the Fyrstadskretsen - the constituency that covered Malmö, Hälsingborg, Landskrona and Lund.

In 1937 he became a political adviser in the Ministry of Social Affairs, and a year later was appointed state secretary and assistant to the Minister of Social Affairs, Gustav Möller. Erlander remained with Möller for most of the period of the Second World War until September 1944 when he was appointed to Per Albin Hansson's wartime Coalition government as Minister without Portfolio. In 1945, when the Coalition was succeeded by a Social Democratic government, he was appointed Ecclesiastical Minister — a post that included responsibility for school and university level education. Reputedly, he delegated everything to do with church affairs to others and concentrated his attention on educational problems with "impressive" results.

Prime Minister
Tage Erlander replaced Per Albin Hansson as leader of the Social Democratic Party and Prime Minister within a week of Hansson's unexpected death in October 1946. The struggle for succession within the party though brief was intense. Erlander, as a representative for the younger generation, was pitted against his mentor Gustav Möller who was Per Albin Hansson's contemporary. Outside the party core, though, the choice of Erlander came as a surprise, Erlander was "completely unknown to most of the general public."

Erlander made few changes in Hansson's cabinet. A number of the members were recognised authorities in their respective fields Ernst Wigforss and Östen Undén remained as Finance Minister and Foreign Minister respectively, and Erlander's rival for the Prime Minister's post, Möller, also continued as Minister for Social Affairs. Erlander appointed the first woman to hold a ministerial level post in Sweden when he made Karin Kock, first Minister without Portfolio in 1947, then Minister of Supply following the elections of 1948.

He formed a coalition with the Centre Party between 1951 and 1957 and the relation with their party leader, Gunnar Hedlund is known to have been good.

He coined the phrase "the strong society", describing a society with a growing public sector taking care of the growing demand on many services that an affluent society creates. The welfare state grew considerably during his years as prime minister, while nationalizations were rare.

He stepped down in 1969 and was succeeded by Olof Palme, who in many ways had been Erlander's student.

From 1972 to 1982 he published his memoirs in six volumes. He died on 21 June 1985 in Stockholm.