Previous research in descriptive representation has devoted little attention to young individuals’ underrepresentation in political assemblies and primarily focused on the underrepresentation of other marginalized groups (Joshi 2013). It is important from a democratic and normative perspective to include young people in political assemblies to ensure diverse and comprehensive representation. The aim of this paper is to understand if the descriptive underrepresentation of young elected officials has an impact on their political efficacy and their perceptions of underrepresentation. This paper centralizes around two theoretical frameworks: descriptive representation and political efficacy. The research questions are: a) Does underrepresentation affect the political efficacy of young elected officials? b) How do young elected officials perceive their underrepresentation?
The results of our analysis show that most of the respondents have a high internal and external political efficacy despite being underrepresented and that the respondents are not negatively affected by being underrepresented. The results indicate that having a high political efficacy might go beyond the negative effects of underrepresentation.