The average age of the 622 members of the German parliament is 49.24, just under a third of them – namely 204 – are women and the largest occupational group is made up of lawyers and jurists. Also especially striking is the number of new parliamentarians: 200 new members gained a seat in the elections to the 17th German Bundestag on 27 September 2009. The Bundestag has also grown as a result of the increased number of “overhang seats”: 11 more members now sit in parliament than during the last legislative period from 2005 to 2009. Precisely 44,005,575 voters elected the new Bundestag. Voter turnout was thus 71%, the lowest level ever recorded in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Born in 1935 and 1985, the oldest and youngest members of the 17th Bundestag are separated by five decades. 73-year-old Heinz Riesenhuber (CDU) presided over the first sitting of the new parliament as Father of the House after being re-elected to the Bundestag for the tenth time. The youngest up-and-coming politician comes from the ranks of the FDP: Florian Bernschneider, the 22-year-old student of business administration, was in great demand for interviews following his election.
International biographies: with a total of 16 deputies, an increasing number of parliamentarians have a migrant background. Their family roots go back to Turkey, Iran, India, Poland, Croatia and Spain.
