Sweden’s new Riksdag will have members ranging in age from 22 to 78 when the newly elected parliament takes office on 28 September. The chamber will also become slightly more gender-balanced after the 2026 election, although men will continue to hold a majority of its 349 seats.
Figures compiled by TT and reported by SVT show that 187 MPs are men and 162 are women, corresponding to 53.6% and 46.4% respectively. The number of women has increased by one compared with the previous Riksdag.
The oldest MP is 78 and the youngest is 22
The oldest member of the new chamber is Ewa Pihl Krabbe, 78, from the Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokraterna).
Pihl Krabbe was already an MP during the previous parliamentary term and will return when the new Riksdag formally takes office on 28 September.
The second-oldest member is Lars Leijonborg, 76, from the Liberal Party (Liberalerna). His return is notable because Leijonborg is a former Liberal leader and served in government in the 2000s. His election to the new Riksdag was only confirmed once the final allocation of seats and candidates had been completed.
At the other end of the chamber is Hanna Lindqvist, 22, from the Green Party (Miljöpartiet), who will become its youngest member.
According to Sweden Herald’s report based on TT data, the median age is 47, exactly the same as after the 2022 election.
Women will hold 46.4% of the seats
The gender balance has moved only slightly compared with the previous parliament.
Women will occupy 162 of the Riksdag’s 349 seats, or 46.4%, while men will occupy 187. That means the new parliament has one more woman than after the 2022 election. (swedenherald.com)
The change looks much larger over a longer period. When Sweden introduced its current unicameral parliament in 1971, only 14% of MPs were women. The proportion has since risen to just under half.
Sweden has never had a Riksdag in which women outnumber men. A 2026 government review of gender equality noted that women have accounted for between 44% and 47% of MPs since 2002.
More than a third of MPs are new
Age and gender are not the only ways in which the chamber has changed.
The final candidate count also shows that more than one third of the 349 elected MPs are new to the Riksdag, according to SVT’s post-election compilation.
Eight candidates also won seats through personal preference votes despite being placed below other candidates on their party lists.
The new parliament will assemble for the first time at 11:00 on 28 September, when the MPs formally take up their seats. The Riksdag will then elect its Speaker and begin organising committees and other parliamentary bodies for the 2026–2030 term. (riksdagen.se)
The result is a chamber with considerable turnover but a remarkably stable age profile: the median MP is still 47 years old, even as the youngest and oldest members are separated by 56 years.
