The Disappearing Senior Leaders

Abstract

Changing age patterns among cabinet members in postindustrial societies have major significance for both the likely political roles open to aging individuals and the representation of age-related interests. Data on cabinet appointments over the past century in Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States show strikingly common tendencies. Junior and senior appointees are giving way to a greater concentration of middle age cabinet members. The emerging age similarity of cabinet career patterns in each country supports the emphasis on regularity and uniformity stressed by recent observers of postindustrial societies. Aging populations thus seem destined to be increasingly underrepresented in the emerging leadership groups of postindustrial societies.