Age Gaps Between Political Leaders and the Public Can Undermine Support for Democracy (With Alonso Roman Amarales and Luca Bellodi).
Many democracies elect political leaders who are substantially older than the public. We find evidence that these age gaps can weaken confidence in representation and reduce support for democracy. Analysis of legislator age data from dozens of democracies shows that support for democracy is lower where age gaps are higher and political leaders are older. Observational and experimental analysis from original surveys in Italy, South Korea, and the United States indicate that people are less satisfied with democracy when they believe politicians are too old, and that exposure to information about age gaps undermines confidence in democratic representation and performance, though not general democratic support. With a conjoint experiment, we show that age gaps can weaken evaluations of representational quality, but less so than gender gaps. Results are similar across age cohorts, suggesting that age gaps constitute a general challenge to democratic support rather than fueling intergenerational conflict over democracy.