Youth representation in the European parliament

This article provides a comprehensive discussion of youth representation in the European Parliament. For all 10 parliaments, we find that young people are severely underrepresented. Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) aged 35 years or under and 40 years or under occupy only 10 per cent and slightly over 20 percent of seats. Despite the second-order nature of European Parliamentary elections, which in theory should lead to easier access for young people, the results imply that this outgroup is not more highly represented than at national parliaments. If we compare youth representation in the current 10th parliament with the nine parliaments before, we also find that youth representation has not increased over the past 40 years.