This is the generational change in Congress: from the dominance of the ‘baby boomers’ to the premiere of generation Z

Deputies from four different generations take their seats this Thursday in Congress. Those of generation X, born between 1965 and 1980 and released in the Lower House in 1993, are today the most numerous in this institution. Like them then, today representatives of generation Z enter for the first time, born after 1997 and marked by the digital age and climate anxiety.

In the following graph you can see how the different generations have alternated since the beginning of democracy.

The members of generation X are now between 40 and 60 years old and occupy 6 out of 10 seats in the new Congress. Marked by the end of the dictatorship, the rise of divorces or the opening of the labor market for women, this group has ousted the children of the baby boom, who are already on their way to retirement, in election after election: if 25 years ago they were more than 70% of the Chamber, now close to 20%.

The baby boomers are the cohort of people born between 1946 and 1964, during the birth explosion ―hence the name― after World War II (see methodology at the bottom of this page). Its demographic explosion meant that this generation already accounted for 10% of the deputies of the Constituent Cortes in 1977. It is the generation that has marked Congress to date and the one that has had the most representation since the beginning of current democracy, with more of 2,400 deputies.

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But it was the so-called silent generation that marked the beginning of Democracy. In the first Cortes of 1977, 60% of the parliamentarians elected were from this promotion, which includes the population born between 1928 and 1945. It is made up of those who were children during the Second World War and lived in a society facing economic difficulties after the twenties, and that Spain lived through the Civil War. The last time that a member of the silent generation was a deputy dates back to the XII legislature (2016-2019), with four parliamentarians between the ages of 71 and 73. Only one person born before 1900 has obtained a deputy certificate: Dolores Ibárruri, La Pasionaria, who was part of the Constituent Assembly.

The age range of the new Congress is wide, in line with the previous ones. Between the oldest and youngest deputies, both from the PSOE, there is a 47-year difference. The socialist and baby boomer María Cristina Narbona is 72 years old, compared to 25 for Ada Santana. The latter and Ferran Verdejo (26 years old) are the youngest and the spearhead of generation Z, which includes people born between 1997 and 2012.

The millennial generation (those born between 1981 and 1996) make up only 18% of public representatives, although they currently make up around 21% of the population: it is normal that Congress is not an exact mirror of the census, as we will detail later.

Even with the entry of generation Z and the increasingly pronounced presence of millennials, the average age of the XV legislature is the highest since the beginning of democracy. Since the constituent legislature of 1977, the average age has increased from 43.3 years to 50.2.

Even so, there are fewer very old deputies. The maximum age of the people who occupy a seat in Congress had its record in the fifth legislature (1993-1996), with León Máximo Rodríguez Valverde (PSOE), 84 years old and belonging to the great generation, as the generation of the Second World War.

On the other hand, there have always been very young deputies, just over twenty, in the Cortes: as an exception, the IV and V legislatures (1989 and 1993 respectively) stand out, where the youngest person to occupy a seat on the bench was 28 years.

Electoral Census in Congress

If we compare the age of the electoral census (people with the right to vote) and that of the deputies, the underrepresentation of young people in the Chamber is reflected, both in this legislature and in previous ones. On 23-J, 11% of the population with the right to vote was from generation Z and 21%, millennials. In other words, one in three people with the right to vote was between 25 and 43 years old. Members of Congress in this age group are around 18%.

Instead, there is an overrepresentation of generation X in the Chamber with respect to what they weigh in the population, similar to that of baby boomers between the VIII and IX legislatures. These are people between the ages of 45 and 55, which have always been the most common ages among deputies.

Vox, from ‘baby boomers’; Add, from ‘millennials’

Deputies from the Popular Party (PP) and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) have a similar age structure. In them, generation X is the majority, and baby boomers and the millennial generation complement each other. Among the Socialists, in addition, the youngest enter, generation Z, with a 1.7% representation within the party (2 deputies out of 121).

The newer formations, Vox and Sumar, have a structure that differs from that of the traditional parties, for different reasons. Of the Vox parliamentarians (33), almost a third (10 of them) are baby boomers and only two are women (in the far-right party there are 9 women compared to 24 men).

In Sumar, on the other hand, close to one in two deputies is a millennial, and the remaining 42% belong to generation X. It is the party with the youngest deputies.

150 repeat seat

In this legislature, 57% of the seats are renewed. 200 parliamentarians who did not appear in the last legislature enter. Of the deputies who repeat seats, 150, the majority belong to generation X, and there are more men (59%) than women (41%).

Methodology

Directory of deputies in the archive of the Congress.JG

The dates of birth of the deputies of the legislatures VII to XV are those that appear on the website of the Congress. The dates of birth of the previous ones have been compiled manually from the guides of deputies that are in the archive of the institution itself and that have not been digitized. It is considered that a parliamentarian repeats when he held the status of deputy throughout the previous legislature.

EL PAÍS makes this data available, on the age and sex of the deputies of all legislatures, which can be downloaded in this repository (only detailed information is included on the deputies who took office at the beginning of each legislature).

The years that each generation comprises are those commonly used in sociological studies and are collected in this study by the American organization Pew Research Center.

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