One in ten people are older than 65. Three in four live under a leader who is

A global dataset of leaders’ ages and tenures across more than 140 countries shows that political rulers are substantially older than the populations they govern. Three in four people live under a leader aged over 65, and two in three live under someone older than 70. The global median leader age is about 64, with regional variation: African leaders average nearly 70, Asia and North America sit in the mid-60s, while Europe and South America trend younger, around the mid-50s. Stark examples underscore the gap: one leader is 93 and governs a country with a median age of 18, a 75-year difference. Within the G20, two leaders are reported over 80, seven over 70, and only three under 50.

Tenure patterns align with regime type: autocracies host the longest-serving leaders while liberal democracies show turnover - none of 25 liberal democracies has a leader in office more than ten years, whereas some autocrats have ruled for decades (one for 27 years, another for 24). Using V-Dem classifications, 31 of 41 African countries in the sample are autocracies and account for most of the oldest leaders. Leaders are older than the adult median population by about 20 years on average, and in 129 of 143 countries the leader’s age exceeds the national median. The dataset includes caveats about exact age verification and leader-definition edge cases and is available via an interactive visualization.