Román, A., Bellodi, L., Williamson, S.
Many democracies elect political leaders who are older than the public. Drawing on original surveys from Italy, South Korea, and the United States, we find evidence that these age gaps can weaken confidence in representation and reduce support for democracy. Further analysis of cross-national surveys from dozens of democracies reinforces these findings. However, in a conjoint experiment, we also show that age gaps weaken evaluations of representational quality 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. These findings imply that democracies can modestly improve public satisfaction by increasing representation of younger generations.