More masculine, smaller and filled with more lawyers: this is the new German parliament

The shift to the right during the German parliamentary elections is not only changing the political colour of the Bundestag. Initial analyses of the 630 parliamentarians who will soon be installed show that the gender balance, the most popular professions and the average age per party are also changing.

Only 32.5 percent of the future members of parliament are women, according to the German newspaper Die Zeit . With the exception of 2017, this is the lowest percentage of women since 2005. This shift is due to the growth of the radical right AfD and CDU/CSU. They are sending 12 and 23 percent of female members of parliament respectively. Parties that usually have more women on their lists have lost seats. These are the SPD and the Greens, both of which use a quota.

More lawyers and older

The AfD and CSU MPs are also relatively older than the representatives elected on behalf of the other parties, with an average age of 51 and 48. However, the average age of parliament remains 47. This is partly due to the 25 new seats of Die Linke, a relatively young party with MPs who are on average 42 years old.

Only 46 MPs (7.5 percent) are under 30, compared to 13 percent of the total population.

Then there are the career choices of the new Bundestag members. The number of lawyers continues to rise, now one in five parliamentarians comes from this sector, followed by 17 percent from the business world. The number of lecturers and professors has fallen to 4 percent. In the mid-1990s, 15 percent of parliament still had a background in education.

Poor representation

The AfD has the most diverse list in terms of career choice. However, even the members of this party hardly come from the working class, just like in the entire Bundestag. The share of working-class members of parliament is only 3 percent. A total of 230 new members of parliament will join the Bundestag, which has only 630 seats due to a recent reform of the electoral law.

Political scientists and sociologists warn of the risks of a lack of 'descriptive' representation, also outside Germany . Although people with the same character traits do not necessarily have the same opinions or interests, research shows that the interests and opinions of groups that are less present in parliament are generally less well represented.