Abstract
Despite their significant demographic weight, young people are overlooked in the representation literature. We know little about age distribution within parliaments and how age influences parliamentary work. In this paper, we explore the extent to which young politicians are included in decision-making by examining the age distribution of MPs sitting on parliamentary committees and portfolio assignment by age. We do this by creating an original dataset using the Committee Membership Dataset (CMD) and the Comparative Legislator Database (CLD). In total we have data spanning from 1989 to 2024, for 54595 individual committee assignments in 45 policy areas and 6 countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Spain and the UK). We find that younger MPs are underrepresented in parliamentary committees, and they are more likely to be present in lower prestige committees compared to their older colleagues. Furthermore, younger MPs are 50% more likely to be assigned to a low prestige committee compared to their oldest colleagues, even when they have the same level of experience doing parliamentary work. These findings indicate there is unequal access to influence within parliaments.
Presenters
Kamila KolodziejczykPhD Candidate, School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Youth, Parliaments, Portfolios, Representation
