STOCKHOLM, Sweden (CNN) -- Thousands of men and women forcibly sterilized during a 40-year selective breeding campaign in Sweden should receive more than $22,000 apiece in compensation, a government-appointed commission recommended Tuesday.

The panel of investigators determined that 63,000 people, mostly women, were sterilized between 1935 and 1975. Many of them were targeted for the procedure because they were considered racially inferior or mentally deficient. Minors, the mentally retarded, epileptics and alcoholics were among those sterilized.

Some operations were performed as a requirement for release from prison, to qualify for certain welfare benefits or to avoid losing custody of children.

The sterilizations were in line with "eugenics" -- a concept of selective breeding to improve human stock. The idea was accepted by many worldwide in the 1930s and '40s, but taken to horrific extremes by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Many women in Sweden signed a document agreeing to be sterilized, but an unknown number were coerced into the procedure, the commission said. Earlier investigations have estimated between 6,000 and 15,000 people were forced to undergo sterilization.

"We aim to answer this question with our final conclusions this summer," said commission member Leif Persson.

The commission noted that 5 to 10 years after their operations, nearly 80 percent of those sterilized said they were happy with their condition and did not regret it.

Payment could not be regarded as true compensation for forced sterilization, commission head Carl-Gustaf Andren said in presenting the 22-page report, but it will provide "concrete and visible evidence of personal redress, an expression of taking a stand against and regretting what took place."

The commission has yet to determine how many victims of the program are still alive. Only about 20 people have contacted the commission since the story surfaced in 1997, shocking a nation that had come to epitomize a welfare state that cares for all.

The investigators' recommendations must be approved by the government, but Andren said he hoped individual compensation could be considered as early as this summer.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.