Women are catching up with appointments to major public sector companies after a study - albeit slowly. This has been determined by the organization "Women in the Supervisory Boards" (FidAR) in a study that will be presented this Thursday.
Accordingly, as of the reporting date of January 1, 2019, the proportion of women on supervisory boards of large public companies has climbed above the 30 percent mark for the first time. From 29.7 percent in the previous year, it rose slightly by 1.1 percentage points to 30.8 percent and, according to FidAR, was on a par with the proportion of women on the supervisory boards of the 30 Dax companies.
The 263 largest companies with country or federal participation in Germany were examined. These include Deutsche Bahn and its subsidiaries, various city and waterworks, as well as housing and lottery companies.
The public companies in Berlin, Brandenburg and Hamburg are in the lead in comparison, Bavaria, Saarland and Saxony behind. FidAR points out that in all countries in the leading group there are guidelines for good corporate governance with corresponding recommendations for more fairness in the allocation of posts, in the countries of the final group, or only recently.
Fewer women in corporate management
While there is generally an upward trend in the proportion of women in the boards of public companies, the share of women in top positions such as management, management or board of directors has decreased. After a steady increase since 2014, there was a slight decline for the first time. On average, almost every fifth top position (18 percent, 2018: 18.8) is manned by a woman.
Although in the largest public companies, almost twice as many women are represented in executive and executive positions as in Dax companies, the decline is "possibly also a sign of declining momentum and should be regarded as a signal," write the authors of the study ,
On Wednesday, former Lufthansa Chief Financial Officer Simone Menne blamed Dax companies' board chairmen for never having run such a group of women. "There are some sayings that you can not imagine: 'There are no women in our industry.' Or: 'That's not that intellectual yet,' "said Menne the weekly newspaper" Die Zeit ".
Reason for this attitude are age and socialization of the predominantly male supervisory board bosses: "The gentlemen are partly over 70 and do not know otherwise. That must change," said Menne.