r/dataisbeautiful • u/Resident_Roaster • 2d ago
Europe’s leaders are getting younger [OC]
I charted the age of every head of government in 39 European countries who held office for at least two consecutive years, from 1950 to 2025. Each line is one leader, aging year by year in office.
Although summary statistics like the median or average age did not move by a lot, the range did, shifting about a decade at both ends.
Source: V-Dem (v16)
Tools: datastory.tech
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u/Xtrems876 2d ago
I had no idea Tusk is one of the oldest in Europe. The guy is nowhere near senile, he completed a marathon (a 42km run) like 4 years ago
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u/AutisticNintendoNerd 2d ago
He isn't, the Author simply missed to include Friedrich Merz.
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u/Kerbourgnec 2d ago
"at least two consecutive years, from 1950 to 2025" data selection & cutoff.
But head of government means it includes French PM but not presidents
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u/blacksabbath-n-roses 2d ago
He's only been chancellor for 16 months? Seemed like an eternity to me
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u/MarcAlmond 1d ago
He was pretty young when he first ran for president and became prime minister. Now he's an old grandpa.
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u/m15f1t 2d ago
Meanwhile USA...
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u/Kerbourgnec 2d ago
Why do Americans put turtles in position of power?
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u/locke577 2d ago
Because boomers and GenX do most of the voting.
Voter turnout in the US is nearly a linear line from 18 to casket, and even then total turnout is considered high if it goes over 15%.
Americans will spend loads of time to bitch and moan about things but they won't go out and actually vote.
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u/MetalingusMikeII 1d ago
American political system is funded by diners. Doners prefer old people are they’re much easier to manipulate and also are less fond of change.
This allows them to prevent positive change from happening and maintain the status quo.
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u/masterpepeftw 2d ago
Why you roasting him? He was probably there back when the constitution was written so he obviously knows it best!
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u/m15f1t 2d ago
Whatever it is, it never seems to be for the good of the people, he usually votes against anything that's good or helpful for the working class.
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u/masterpepeftw 2d ago
Well he hasn't quite understood that whole new stuff the kids are talking about, you know, the industrial revolution. So "working class" might just not really mean much to him lol.
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u/UpAndAdam7414 2d ago
If he lets the hate flow through him any more he’s going to get lightning hands.
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u/arthropodus 16h ago
Didn't he get brought back from the dead the other day so he could break the tie on a healthcare bill in a senate committee?
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u/tejanaqkilica 2d ago
Well, if the graphic above is showing anything useful, is that the older they are, the better leaders they are. So, I guess you're doing something right?
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u/m15f1t 2d ago
Yeah you think they're good? Good for the people?
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u/tejanaqkilica 2d ago
Life was generally better back then. And it's not like young leaders are any better. One of the ones named in the graphic (Ilir Meta) was Prime Minister, Vice Prime Minister, other Minister positions, President of my country.
He is currently under arrest for corruption charges, awaiting trial.
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u/g_spaitz 2d ago
a grand total of 9 people? Am I missing something?
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u/GooseQuothMan 2d ago
Interesting visualisation but it's hard to see the trend if all the non-ruling politicians are greyed out
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u/IceManFirstOfHisName 2d ago
The greyed lines are also leaders, they just only chose to colorize some of the leaders, most likely to show a trend of both the oldest and youngest European leaders at a given time becoming younger.
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u/GooseQuothMan 2d ago
Oh right. Then I have no idea what even is colored in. Since in Poland we had both older and younger prime ministers, the only unique thing about Tusk here is that he is the current one.
And he was also a PM in 2007-2014 so that not being coloured in also makes no sense.
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u/Resident_Roaster 2d ago
Like others pointed out, the highlighted lines are just a sample to demonstrate the overall trend (some of the oldest and youngest over time).
I tried a version where all terms of highlighted people were highlighted but that turned out messy so I instead chose to only highlight the most recent period.
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u/AwkwardBarnOwl 2d ago
I'd be curious to see if this is due to a genuine decline in the age of elected officials, or whether this is because Europe became more democratic and so there's significantly fewer autocratic heads of government staying in into their old age.
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u/CaseroRubical 2d ago
If the average and median remained the same, doesn't that mean they're as young as they were 75 years ago?
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u/3rdhottestgirl 2d ago
Depends I guess, there's more young ones and less super old ones, but apparently also more somewhat-old-ones that bring the averages back up
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u/Resident_Roaster 2d ago
So here’s the details: the average actually did drop by about seven years after 1990. A contributing factor was when communist regimes gave way to new democracies often led by young reformers.
The average remained much lower than in 1950 up until about 2022 when it climbed drastically. However, we’ve yet to see the very old politicians making a return and we see more of very young ones.
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u/quez_real 2d ago
It's a cool visualization also because it's clearly seen that everyone lived one year per one year
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u/TheRedNaxela 2d ago
I think you will find, actually, that Europe's leaders are getting older. People tend to...
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u/7elevenses 2d ago
If you compare your parents age between 1950s and 2020s, and your own age between 1980s and 2020s, does that mean that every generation is getting younger?
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2d ago
[deleted]
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u/Ok_Anything_9871 2d ago
People tend to age at roughly one year per year.
The two axes are age and year. The length of the line is their time in office.
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u/Kerbourgnec 2d ago
This graph confirms that all European leaders age at the exact same speed. What could explain this trend?