Being told she’s too young has never stopped Elizabeth Dempsey Beggs. She joined the Army at age 17 and was one of the first women to serve as a tank commander. Now, she’s 29 and running for a House seat from Virginia. If elected, she would become the youngest woman currently in Congress and the youngest mom to ever serve in Congress. But Beggs isn’t running to break records. She’s running because she feels called to serve her community: “No one is coming to save us but ourselves.”
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A young person running for office “shouldn’t be abnormal,” says Beggs. But that is the current reality in the U.S., where less than one-fifth of lawmakers in the House and Senate are 45 or younger. That makes the U.S. an outlier globally.
The U.S. ranks 146th out of 171 countries for the share of representatives under 45 years old, the lowest of all liberal democracies, according to data from IPU Parline and the United Nations. The measure examines the lower chamber (or only chamber where applicable) for all countries for which data is available.
The current U.S. Congress is the third-oldest in U.S. history with average ages of 57.9 in the House and 63.9 in the Senate. Both averages have risen about 10 years since the 1980s.
Why do Americans between 25 (the minimum age for House members) and 45 make up 28.3% of the country’s population but just 18.4% of Congress? Political scholars Aksel Sundström and Daniel Stockemer argue that deep structural issues cause this discrepancy. When older politicians continue to run for reelection and younger people are told to “wait their turn” to run, the cycle persists.
Sundström and Stockemer wrote the book “Youth Without Representation.” Stockemer said he is highlighting how government should represent the age diversity of American society.
Barriers to Young Americans Taking Government Roles
Running for office is expensive and time-consuming. Most people cannot afford to lose up to a year’s salary while they campaign, especially young people navigating today’s affordability crisis, says Beggs. Stockemer also says the “network structure” in U.S. politics and fundraising favors candidates with the most connections, especially those in the business world – putting less experienced and less wealthy candidates at a disadvantage.
Another factor is the belief among voters that young people don’t have the experience or achievements necessary to run for office. But a 2025 experiment conducted by Sundström, Stockemer and Charles T. McClean reveals that people are more likely to trust a mixed-age legislature than one with just older representatives. To them, the issue is more structural than ideological.
“Parties are a bit reluctant to put their bets on young candidates because of the electoral system,” says Sundström.
Added Stockemer: “The problem is not necessarily that young people cannot win. The problem is that young people don’t get nominated.”
As it stands, the chances of young candidates beating older candidates – especially incumbents – are slim. Beggs is the youngest candidate running in a crowded Democratic primary in Virginia’s 1st District, which will determine who goes up against a Republican incumbent who has held this seat for 20 years.
Complicating matters is that young voters whose issues younger candidates hope to represent have historically lagged in voter registration and voter turnout.
Age restrictions are another structural barrier. The U.S. is one of the few Western countries where the voting age is not the same as the minimum age to run for office, Stockemer points out. Americans can vote when they turn 18 but cannot run for the House until age 25 or the Senate until 30. This sends the message that young people are not fit to fully participate in politics and discourages engagement from the beginning, says Stockemer.
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Why Youth Representation Matters
An age gap between the government and the governed risks fostering apathy toward politics in young people, Sundström says. Already, one-third of younger adults do not follow U.S. politics very closely or at all, according to a 2025 AP-NORC poll.
Further, Sundström says an older government “might not reflect the priorities and needs of citizens that will be alive 50 years from now.” Beggs says she is motivated by the prospect of building the future that she and her generation will live in.
“I’m not rich enough to be exempt, and I’m not old enough to be exempt,” she says.
The issues that matter to many young people – education, affordability, climate change, reproductive rights, gun laws – tend to differ from the priorities of older politicians.
The Top 10 Countries in Youth Government Representation
The Netherlands and Norway lead the list of countries doing this better than the U.S., as the liberal democracies with the highest youth participation in government. They are also both among the Top 10 freest and happiest countries.
Not accounting for the strength and effectiveness of their democratic institutions, Ethiopia and Armenia lead a list of nations with the highest overall youth participation in government.
How the U.S. Can Improve
This age gap mirrors a broader structural vulnerability highlighted in U.S. News 2026 Best Countries rankings. While the United States ranked No. 18 overall – propelled by ranking 2nd globally in economic development – it ranked just 41st for Civic Health out of 100 nations evaluated in part from middling scores on voter turnout and the Liberal Democracy Index.
Some propose term or age limits to better control age diversity in government. About 8 in 10 American adults in a May poll by NPR, PBS News and Marist supported maximum age limits for members of Congress. Canada, for example, has a mandatory retirement age of 75 for its Senate.
Stockemer wonders why most jobs have retirement ages except the “most important ones” – politicians who make decisions that determine the country’s future. He adds that renewal is important, because if people have their seats for too long, it can lead to corruption.
Sundström and Stockemer hesitate to believe that the U.S. will improve in this way, as age has become so politicized. People are reluctant to “open Pandora’s box” and talk about the importance of youth representation, says Stockemer.
Beggs is hopeful about American youth’s potential to disrupt the cycle: “The system is broken and this is the generation that’s fixing it.”
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– Senior Data Editor Evan Comen contributed to this story.
