This study investigates whether the socialcomposition of Swedish party groups and the pre-parliamentary politicalexperience of members of the Riksdag have become more homogeneous, dueto the increasing professionalisation of party politics. According to the masspartyideal, political parties are open to all members. The rise and spreadof state-financed party funding enables cartel parties to employ increasingnumbers of professional politicians. As a result, the norm ofself-selection is increasingly being replaced by the norm of employment, thatis, of being recruited, hired and paid by an employer. Compared with selfselection,it is presumably more common for a person hired to be similar tothe person responsible for recruiting/hiring. However,Hagevi’s findings do not support the contention that increasing party subsidiesfrom the state are related to a more socially homogenous parliament, withrecruitment of parliamentary members from the growing extra-parliamentarypool of professional politicians becoming more dominant.