Status: 05.01.2023 12:13 p.m
For the first time since the start of the evaluation ten years ago, there is at least one woman on the majority of listed companies in Germany. However, a woman still faces an average of seven men.
According to a study, the management level of top German companies listed on the stock exchange is more female than ever since the EY evaluation began in 2013. According to the auditing and consulting company, for the first time there is at least one female manager on the board of directors of the majority of the 160 companies in the DAX family examined. As of January 1, 2023, at least one board member was a woman in 83 companies.
Overall, however, men continue to dominate the management body. “Something is happening on the executive boards, more and more top managers are making it into the top committees of listed companies in Germany,” said EY expert Markus Heinen. However, development continues to be very slow and the impression remains that “progress could and should go faster.” Because so far only a few women have made it to the top of the board. Only nine of the 160 top positions are held by women managers.
The highest proportion of women in the top German stock exchange league
In general, one woman on the Management Board is currently facing seven men, purely arithmetically. As of the reporting date, 109 of the 705 board members of the 160 companies were women – 17 more than a year earlier. The proportion of women rose by 2.3 percentage points to 15.5 percent. It was the highest level since the first evaluation in summer 2013.
The change is strongest in the 40 stock exchange heavyweights of the leading German index DAX. According to the information, the proportion of women is 21.2 percent. 85 percent have at least one woman on the executive board. In addition, female managers are increasingly being asked to fill vacant positions. Accordingly, 22 new board members were appointed in the DAX last year, eleven of whom were women. As of the reporting date, 12 percent of the board members of the 50 MDAX companies were female, and 12.4 percent of the 70 SDAX companies.
The non-profit Allbright Foundation now sees growing competition for top managers. “Now more than ever, it’s about repositioning yourself better and securing the best minds for this – including and especially the female ones,” warned the foundation’s managing directors Wiebke Ankersen and Christian Berg recently. The DAX companies were the most successful recently. On the other hand, it will be more difficult for medium-sized and small companies that do not yet have a woman on the board.
Women on the board earn more than men
Listed companies with equal co-determination with more than 2,000 employees and more than three board members now have to ensure that at least one woman sits on the management floor when new appointments are made to the board. The minimum participation requirement applies to appointments from August 1, 2022. Other listed or co-determined companies that do not fall under the minimum requirement must justify if they plan their board without women – i.e. if they state a “zero target” in their reports.
Since suitable female candidates are scarce and women therefore have a good negotiating position, they are ahead of their male colleagues when it comes to remuneration on the executive boards. Even if the salary advantage has shrunk recently, they earn more on average, as another EY study recently showed. According to this, women in the top floor of the 160 companies in the DAX family 2021 received an average of a good 2.4 million euros and thus 348,000 euros more than their male board colleagues.
Speaking of salaries: According to calculations by the Left Party, the DAX board members earned as much in the first few days of the year as average earners did for the whole year.
Mathematically, the tie was reached this Thursday, said party leader Janine Wissler of the dpa news agency. Accordingly, in 2021 full-time employees earned 4100 euros gross per month and 49,200 euros per year. The board members of the companies listed on the DAX would have earned an average of 3.9 million euros a year and would therefore have equaled average earners after 4.61 days. “We need an outcry from society as a whole against this injustice,” Wissler demanded.
Women are particularly responsible for operational functions and human resources
According to EY, whether women make it to the management level is very often a question of corporate culture. It differs from company to company how difficult it is to get to the top. “Even if traditional role understandings have changed significantly in recent years, female employees are still more dependent on flexible working hours than their colleagues,” said Heinen.
According to EY, women on the board are primarily responsible for operational functions (32 percent of board members), human resources (25 percent) and finance (20 percent). According to the Allbright Foundation, finance has often been a stepping stone to CEO positions in the past.