Something is happening in the management boards of German corporations: According to a report by the German-Swedish Allbright Foundation, the proportion of women in the boards of listed companies has grown significantly faster than expected in the past twelve months. Accordingly, the rate rose by 1.3 percentage points compared to the previous year - at least 9.3 percent. For the first time, according to the study more women than men with the first name Thomas and Michael are represented in the stock exchange boards. The Allbright Foundation has collected these statistics for three years.
More in the SPIEGEL
Issue 39/2019
Trio Infernal
A fanatic, a hothead and the unpredictable: what a war on the Gulf would mean for the worldDigital Edition | Printed issues | Apps | SUBSCRIPTION
There is a simple reason for the increase: Above-average numbers of men have vacated their posts in the past year. In many cases, they were replaced by women. It is now important to work even more dedicated to the problem, write the Allbright CEOs Wiebke Ankersen and Christian Berg, "so that Germany finally finds its way to the international standard."
There the distance to the leader USAweiter has increased. In the United States, on average, more than one in four board members in the 30 largest companies is a woman - in Germany only about one in seven. Will maintain the current pace, write the authors, a 40-percent rate is still 22 years away. A female share of 30 percent on the board has not yet reached a single DAX company.
The situation is different on most supervisory boards, where women's quota has been in place since 2016. Places that become vacant must be filled with women there until the proportion is 30 percent. In addition, companies are at least formally obliged to set "targets" for filling the posts of the Board of Management. These goals can also be zero.
Among the companies that have a percentage of women of exactly zero percent include the online startups Hello Fresh, Zalando and Xing, but also the car rental company Sixt, eyewear manufacturer Fielmann or Deutsche Wohnen.
This topic comes from the new SPIEGEL magazine - available at the kiosk from Saturday morning and every Friday at SPIEGEL + and in the digital magazine edition.
What is in the new SPIEGEL and what stories you find at SPIEGEL +, you will also learn in our free policy newsletter DIE LAGE, which appears six times a week - compact, analytical, opinionated, written by the political minds of the editorial staff.
