Still at only twelve percent: the proportion of women on executive boards is hardly growing

Wednesday 20th January 2021

Continue at only twelve percent
The proportion of women on executive boards is hardly growing

The board positions in Germany are still mostly occupied by men. While a DIW study complains that there is a lot of catching up to do, a personnel consultancy sees the company on the right track. The hope now rests on the adopted quota for women.

According to a new study by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), the proportion of women on executive boards is still growing only slowly. "In the 200 companies with the highest turnover in Germany, only 101 out of 878 board members were women in the autumn of last year," says the report that the institute presented in Berlin. "That corresponds to a share of around twelve percent, only a good percentage point more than in the previous year."

In the companies listed in the Dax share index, the proportion of women has even stagnated. "After the departure of Jennifer Morgan as co-CEO of SAP, not a single Dax 30 company is currently led by a woman," the authors write. Accordingly, the proportion of women in the 30 companies at the time of the survey in autumn was 14.6 percent, i.e. 0.1 percentage points below the value of the previous year.

The personnel consultancy Russel Reynolds also presented figures for the Dax, which, according to a spokesman, were collected a few days ago and thus provided a more up-to-date picture: According to this, the proportion of women on Dax executive boards is now at a high of 15.3 percent. If you add the new appointments already decided for this year, "the share of women in the Dax is 16.9 percent – the fastest increase in the last ten years". Since the turn of the year, three DAX companies (Deutsche Telekom, SAP, Allianz) have had more than 30 percent women on the board for the first time. According to the Russell Reynolds investigation, eight DAX companies do not yet have a woman on their board. The number will decrease to six by April because Bayer and Eon are now appointing women to their boards.

From the perspective of the DIW, however, the quota of women for company boards decided by the cabinet at the beginning of the year could further increase the proportion. The long controversial draft law stipulates that at least one woman must sit on the boards of listed companies with equal co-determination and with more than three members.

"This regulation would currently apply to 74 companies, around 30 of which they do not yet meet," write the two DIW authors. "If they did this in the future, the proportion of women on the board of directors in the companies concerned would rise from around 13 to 21 percent." In order to have a really big impact, the law applies to too few companies, criticized DIW expert Katharina Wrohlich in the "Rheinische Post" a few weeks ago.