According to the credit agency Schufa, it is still easier for women in Germany to become their own boss than to achieve a top position in a company. Female managers seem to have the best opportunities in small companies. According to data from the information service provider Crif, the proportion of top managers is highest there. According to both studies, women in East German companies are still comparatively most strongly represented in the management level.
According to the Schufa data, around 30.8 percent of all tradespeople and freelancers are women. In contrast, only around 20 percent of the partnerships and corporations surveyed have at least one female manager on the management floor (as of February 2023). “At the current rate, we would have to wait until 2070, until half of all German companies have a woman in the first management level,” said Schufa boss Tanja Birkholz on Tuesday on the occasion of World Women’s Day this Wednesday (March 8).
4.5 million companies evaluated
Schufa evaluated 4.5 million companies from its database, 1.7 million of which were partnerships and corporations and 2.8 million sole proprietorships, such as tradespeople and freelancers. Overall, 26.9 percent of the 4.5 million companies have at least one woman on the executive board, on the board or as the owner (2022: 26.4 percent).
According to the information, women managers make the best progress in the veterinary sector. There, the proportion of companies with at least one female manager on the top floor is 66.1 percent, followed by clothing manufacturing (around 62.7 percent), social services (59.8 percent) and healthcare (57.8 percent). . The proportion of companies with at least one woman on the top floor is lowest in parts of the construction sector (around 6.5 percent).
Higher share in small companies
According to data from the information service provider Crif, in smaller companies with up to ten employees, more than every fourth manager is female (27.8 percent). With 101 to 500 employees, the rate drops to 12.3 percent. In corporations with more than 10,000 employees, the proportion of women in management, the supervisory board or the board of directors increases to 17.1 percent. A total of 1.2 million companies were evaluated.
There are also regional differences: According to Crif, companies in Brandenburg are at the top nationwide with a proportion of women in management positions of 29.5 percent, followed by Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (28 percent), Saxony (27.3 percent) as well as Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia (26.1 percent). The rate is lowest for companies in Bremen (19.5 percent). Schufa comes to similar conclusions.
Only 11 percent of engineering employees are women
The mechanical engineering association VDMA complained that there were still too few female engineers in the industry. Last year, the proportion of women among engineering employees was a good 11 percent. Attracting more women to technical professions and keeping them in the company is therefore an urgent task.
