Most electoral democracies are younger than the oldest people who live in them

This chart shows that almost two dozen democracies are younger than 18 — as young as the children in these countries. Others are only as old as their young adults. This is based on data from Regimes of the World.

In these younger democracies, most people have experienced life under authoritarian rule, and older people lacked democratic political rights for most of their lives.

A larger group of countries have been electoral democracies for one to three generations. In these countries, children and young adults have only known life in a democracy, but their parents and grandparents have experienced non-democratic rule.

Only ten countries have been democratic for more than 90 years. In these places, democracy is older than almost all of their citizens.