By Elizabeth Harrin (London)
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is managed by men. While Chancellor Angela Merkel has packed her cabinet with a good gender balance, that isn’t reflected in German businesses. And many people think it should be.
Recently German politicians have been debating targets for the number of women on supervisory and executive boards. They are aiming for 30% representation by 2018. That’s 10% below the target that Norway set in 2003, but a lot higher than the current board representation figures.
“Germany is recognized as a laggard in terms of public policy focused on helping women in the workplace,” says Véronique Bourez, in the report Women on Boards: Moving Beyond Tokenism [PDF]. “The number of women in senior levels in business is certainly one of the lowest in Europe.”
According to FIDAR, a German women’s association which aims to promote a sustainable increase in the proportion of women on the supervisory boards of German companies, only about 12% of the directorships of large German companies are women. However, most of those are labour union representatives. If you look at the female shareholder representatives on boards the number drops to a measly 4.5%.