According to studies, there are now more women on the executive floors of listed companies in Germany than at any time in recent years. According to data from the auditing and consulting company EY, the number of female managers on the board of the companies in the Dax family rose to 120 in the first half of the year, the highest level since the start of the evaluation ten years ago. The organization “Women in supervisory boards” (Fidar) comes to similar conclusions. However, female executives are still in the minority.
Federal Women’s Minister Lisa Paus still sees a need for action. “The legal requirements are successful, the fixed quotas for supervisory boards and executive boards are working,” said the Greens politician. “In order to achieve equal participation for women in management positions, however, we have to take the entire management into account.”
Fidar evaluated the 160 companies in the Dax family as well as another 20 listed and co-determined companies as of May this year. At 18.3 percent, the proportion of female managers on the executive boards of these companies reached a peak value since the start of the evaluation in 2015 (previous year: 14.7 percent). The proportion of women on the supervisory boards also rose to a high of 35.3 percent (previous year: 33.5 percent).
Fidar: Drivers are legal regulations
According to Fidar, drivers are primarily legal regulations. Listed companies with equal co-determination with more than 2000 employees and more than three board members must now ensure that at least one woman sits on the management floor when filling new positions on the board. Since the beginning of the year alone, a further 15 managers have been appointed to the boardrooms of the 62 companies that are currently subject to the regulation, it said. Only four of the affected companies have no female manager in the top floor.
For supervisory boards, a law that has been in force since 2015 stipulates a women’s quota of 30 percent for the around 100 largest listed companies that are subject to co-determination. “Fixed quotas are necessary because voluntary commitments don’t work,” argued Fidar founding president Schulz-Strelow.
Fidar President Anja Seng called for the quotas to be extended to all co-determined or listed companies. “Our goal must be to fill all bodies equally in the medium term – supervisory board, executive board and senior management.”
42 percent without a female manager
According to the EY study, the proportion of women on the boardrooms of the 160 companies in the Dax family rose to 17.0 percent in the first half of the year (July 2022: 13.6 percent). Ten years ago it was 4.7 percent. “We are seeing that more and more top managers are making it onto the boards of Germany’s top companies,” said EY expert Ev Bangemann. “But there is still one woman versus five men on board committees.” Around 42 percent of the 160 corporations do not have a single female manager.
According to the information, the proportion of women is the highest at a good 23 percent in the top floor of the 40 stock exchange heavyweights of the Dax. At the 50 MDax companies, 16.5 percent of the board members are female. At 11.5 percent, the proportion of women in the management bodies of the 70 SDax companies is the lowest.
For the first time, the majority of the medium-sized companies listed in the MDax have at least one woman on the board, as the study shows. This has been the case in the Dax since 2016. The smaller SDax companies are still lagging behind here.
