Gen Z holds only 26 legislative seats despite 26% population share

India's constitutional democracy rests on the principle of representative government — that elected legislatures should, at least broadly, reflect the composition of the society they govern. Article 81 of the Constitution fixes the composition of the Lok Sabha, while Article 170 governs State Legislative Assemblies. The Representation of the People Act, 1951 sets the minimum age for contesting Lok Sabha and Assembly elections at 25 years, and for the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils at 30 years. These thresholds were inherited from colonial-era conventions and have never been revised, even as India's median age has fallen and its youth population has grown substantially.

Gen Z — defined as those born between 1997 and 2012 — constitutes approximately 36.74 crore people, or 25.8% of India's estimated 142.6 crore population. The cohort aged 25 and above within this group (i.e., those legally eligible to contest elections) accounts for roughly 8.9% of the total population. This is not a marginal demographic: it is the single largest generational cohort entering civic and economic life simultaneously. Yet the institutional pathways through which this generation could shape policy — Parliament and state legislatures — remain almost entirely closed to it in practice.

The broader context matters here. India's demographic dividend argument has long assumed that a large, young population will translate into economic and political dynamism. The employment data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2023-24 complicates this — Gen Z unemployment stands at 11.9% overall, rising to 22.6% for urban young women, and graduate-level unemployment reaching 36.9% for young women. A generation that is simultaneously economically marginalised and politically underrepresented faces a compounded democratic deficit.