Introducing a New Dataset: Age Representation in Parliaments on the Party-Level

Abstract

This research note highlights the underrepresentation of younger people in parliaments across the globe, which has been a persistent issue for decades. We introduce a novel open-access dataset containing information on mean and median age as well as the share of MPs in specific age brackets in party parliamentary groups in lower houses or single chambers of national parliaments. The dataset covers 163 cases from 30 countries and features variables that present these aforementioned shares in relation to the respective group’s presence in the voting-age population (Age Representation Index). Furthermore, the dataset includes the share of women within the party parliamentary groups as well as identifiers that enable matching the dataset with indicators from the Political Party Database (PPDB), the V-Party dataset, PartyFacts and the Manifesto Project Database. Our main finding underlines the importance of research focusing on party level factors influencing youth representation as there is not only variation between countries, but also within them on the party-level. Additionally, we show that most party parliamentary groups in which women are underrepresented also have low relative shares of young people, which is in line with theoretical arguments on party behavior.