Frankfurt (Germany) – German companies still have a long way to go before achieving gender equality in their boardrooms, but a study shows that the number of women in top jobs is on the rise.
On the first day of 2020, a total of 64 women were working in the management of the 160 firms listed in the DAX, MDAX, and SDAX stock exchanges, according to research carried out by Ernst and Young (EY) consultancy firm.
That is six more than a year ago.
Female bosses were vastly outnumbered by their 633 male colleagues, the data showed.
Nonetheless, female representation in management has been steadily rising in Germany since July 2015, from 5 per cent back then to 9.2 per cent today, EY said.
However, 66 per cent of German firms do not have a single female executive.
The study noted considerable differences between large and smaller listed companies.
More than three-quarters (77 per cent) of the 30 top-league DAX firms had at least one woman on their board of directors, while that figure dropped to 28 per cent among the medium-sized MDAX companies and 20 per cent in the smaller SDAX firms.
DAX companies achieved a first in October 2019 when Jennifer Morgan was made co-chief executive of the SAP software giant.
At engineering conglomerate Thyssenkrupp, Martina Merz moved from the supervisory board to lead the board of directors – but only temporarily.
“Change is slowly happening on the boards of listed companies in Germany,” said EY expert Markus Heinen.
(dpa/NAN)
