Women are rare in the boards of major German companies - but if they make it to the top, they earn significantly more than their male counterparts. This has been calculated by the consulting firm Ernst & Young (EY). According to this, the remuneration of female managers is on average 26.7 percent higher than that of managers, which amounts to an average salary difference of 120,000 euros.
Direct compensation of female executives in Germany's largest listed companies averaged € 2.27 million last year. This trend follows a trend: Top managers have been earning above average since 2015. In 2017, the salary gap between men and women was 16.8 percent.
Men, however, continue to set the tone in large corporations. In the first half of this year, there were 61 women on the boards of the 160 companies listed in the three stock market indices Dax, MDax and SDax. They sat opposite 640 men. Women's quota: 8.7 percent. The proportion of companies with a female CEO is even just 1.9 percent. In the Dax 30, a first woman was recently appointed to the top with SAP co-chef Jennifer Morgan.
CEOs excluded - earnings distorted
CEOs therefore excluded EY altogether in the study - thereby distorting the result. Since CEOs achieve significantly higher salaries than other members of the Executive Board, the salary advantage of women would probably be gone. In Dax, for example, a CEO received 2018 average total direct compensation of 5.39 million euros, while the other members of the Executive Board received 2.96 million euros.
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Female directors depend on male colleagues: These are the top earners in the DaxJens Massmann from EY explains the salary differences with the fact that women are in demand as top managers, above all among the 30 DAX companies. "Since suitable candidates are in short supply, their market value and thus their remuneration," says the study.
Since 2016, companies have been required by law to maintain a female quota of 30 percent on the supervisory boards. There is no such requirement for board members, but companies must set their own goals and make them public. A large proportion of companies respond by officially targeting 0 percent of women on the board. The others, however, have to go twice in search of candidates: for the supervisory board to meet the statutory quota, and for the board because of the self-imposed goal.
Overall, the managers of large German corporations had to accept salary cuts last year. On average, the Boards received 2.09 million euros, half a percent less than a year earlier. In 2013, the first year of the survey, they had earned 30,000 euros more. On the other hand, the women on the boards received 6.5 percent more on average.
