Which countries have the most-educated politicians?

Nov 14th 2024

Who rules the world? For years political scientists have enjoyed comparing the kinds of people who win seats in national parliaments. They have found it fairly easy to monitor the age of elected lawmakers (the global average is now 51) and the share of women (still just 27%). They have had more trouble examining how other characteristics differ across countries. Two datasets released in October and November address that. They help scholars compare the education of elected politicians.

The first, compiled by researchers at six universities, gathered biographical information on nearly 20,000 parliamentarians in 97 countries between 2015 and 2017. It is the most comprehensive survey to date. Because the route into politics does not tend to change much even when governments change, the data probably reflect the current reality. The study found that, on average, 78% of lawmakers had at least an undergraduate degree, and that 40% had postgraduate ones. Those numbers are far above the average for all adults (which in rich countries is currently 35% and 15%, respectively). Our ranking below includes 56 countries that have populations of more than 2m and data for at least 90% of lawmakers.

Ukraine had the highest proportion of legislators with postgraduate credentials; almost a quarter had PhDs when the data were collected. Academic titles have long been helpful in Ukraine’s politics: all of its presidents since independence in 1991, except Volodymyr Zelensky, have claimed to hold doctorate degrees. Even the younger and more diverse parliament elected in 2019 included a similar share of lawmakers with PhDs.

Other places with highly-accredited legislators include South Korea—where around one-third of lawmakers claim to have PhDs—and America, where more than two-thirds had postgraduate credentials. In comparison, Italy, Norway and Britain had high shares of lawmakers with no more than a secondary-school education. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, for example, became speaker of Britain’s House of Commons without going to university. Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini, anti-establishment politicians in Italy, are university dropouts.

The second study, by researchers in Chile, relied on a sample of 6,000 legislators in some 30 countries in 2023. It finds that, in North America and Latin America, law graduates tend to make up the largest blocs in national legislatures. In the Nordics people who studied social sciences, such as economics, are much more common. African voters seem to favour business graduates. Britain elects an unusually large number of lawmakers whose highest degrees are in the arts and humanities, such as history or classics.

Voters in places where politicians have lots of letters after their names might expect their leaders to do their jobs better than average. In fact, there is little empirical evidence to support that. A study published in 2015 examined the performance of members of America's Congress throughout the 20th century. It found that those with college degrees did not stay in office longer, pass more bills or win re-election more often than those without. A more recent study in Spain found that mayors with degrees were no better than others at cutting unemployment, balancing budgets or attracting newcomers to their towns. Countries that pack their parliaments with attorneys do not enjoy notably stronger rule of law, according to a forthcoming paper. And, across the world, the most highly-educated politicians lose elections at about the same rate as candidates who have less formal education.

And yet, people without degrees are finding it increasingly difficult to get their names onto ballot sheets. National legislatures, at least in regards to education, have become less like the populations that they are supposed to represent. That could have unfortunate consequences. The type of people who acquire uncommonly expensive educations tend to have different priorities from the man on the street. Citizens become less likely to vote if they do not see people like themselves on ballot papers—and they are a bit more inclined to listen to populists who insist their democracies are rigged. On average parliaments around the world are gradually becoming younger, and a bit more female. But they are also becoming more elite.■

Which countries have the most-educated politicians?

American lawmakers have lofty credentials, but not necessarily more skills

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