Youth Representation in Cabinets in Latin America

Abstract

Youth face under-representation in political office. In this article, we look at cabinets, the pinnacle of political power. Focusing on Latin and South America, we find that youth's numerical representation is significantly lower in cabinets than in parliament. The age group 35 years or under makes up a mere 3 per cent of cabinet members, and those aged 40 or under constitute 9 per cent of ministers. We also illustrate that despite this strong lack of representation, there is variation in the average age of cabinets and the percentage of young ministers, some of which is explained by the age of the head of the government. Finally, we show that the few ministers that make it to cabinet are distributed relatively equally between high-prestige portfolios, medium-prestige portfolios and low-prestige portfolios.