Women are clearly in the minority in management positions in German companies. In 27 percent of 4.7 million companies, at least one woman is currently among the owners, management or board of directors, as the Schufa credit agency reported based on an analysis of the data available to it. This means that the proportion has remained almost unchanged compared to last year. The proportion of women in the entire first management level in companies in Germany is stagnating at 23.9 percent.
The KfW banking group also comes to the conclusion in an analysis that women are “generally underrepresented” in management positions in medium-sized companies. Their proportion has even fallen: in 2023, 602,000 small and medium-sized companies were run by a woman. That was around 155,000 fewer than a year earlier. According to KfW, of the approximately 3.8 million medium-sized companies, 15.8 percent were recently led by a female boss. A year earlier it was 19.7 percent.
KfW: Remove hurdles for female founders
The development bank explains the development, among other things, by the fact that women are founding companies less often and recently even with a declining trend. “In order to see more women in leadership positions and as bosses, gender stereotypes and traditional role patterns in areas such as education, education or the division of labor at home must be broken down,” warned KfW chief economist Fritzi Köhler-Geib.
Schufa boss Tanja Birkholz sees some initial progress: “In large companies, the sensitivity to the promotion of women and the implementation of the corresponding measures has made further progress. The effect of the statutory women’s quota is also evident here.” According to the Schufa evaluation, the proportion of companies with at least one woman in the first management level among partnerships and corporations is around 20 percent. For companies with sales of more than one billion euros, the figure is 34 percent.
Since August 1, 2021, listed and co-determined companies with more than 2,000 employees and more than three board members have had to ensure that at least one woman sits on the top floor when appointing new members to the board.
