equal rights
Study: Fewer female bosses in medium-sized companies
A woman stands in an office and holds a smartphone in her hand (staged scene). Photo: Annette Riedl/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Women are still in the minority in the management level of German companies. Medium-sized companies are even less and less frequently led by women managers.
The proportion of women in the top floors of medium-sized companies fell again last year after a brief interim high in 2020.
According to an evaluation by the state development bank KfW, 16 percent or 608,000 of the approximately 3.8 million small and medium-sized companies in Germany were run by women. A year earlier it was 638,000 companies. The previous high was recorded in 2013. At that time, 19.4 percent of medium-sized companies were headed by a female manager.
According to KfW chief economist Fritzi Köhler-Geib, one of the main reasons for this development is the significant decline in business start-ups in Germany in recent years. “Anyone who wants female bosses needs female founders and women in all economic fields or industries,” said Köhler-Geib on the occasion of International Women’s Day this Tuesday. According to this, women mainly run service companies, which are smaller on average and suffered particularly badly from the consequences of the Corona crisis.
In contrast to medium-sized companies, the proportion of women in the management of large companies has recently increased. Statutory regulations also provided a tailwind. For example, the women’s quota for executive boards that has been in effect since August 2021 stipulates that in listed companies with equal co-determination with more than 2,000 employees and more than three board members, there must be at least one female manager on the board when new appointments are made.
Schufa: Still a big imbalance
Since 2015, there has been a women’s quota for supervisory boards of companies above a certain size – usually more than 2,000 employees. According to the KfW study, the hope that this could also encourage the entry of women into the executive floors of medium-sized companies has so far remained unfulfilled.
A study by the credit agency Schufa, which evaluated 4.5 million companies from its database in February, comes to the conclusion that there is still a major imbalance between men and women at the top of German companies. According to this, only 26.4 percent of the companies surveyed had at least one female manager in the top floor, for example on the board of directors, in management or as the owner.
It would be easier for women to become their own boss than, for example, to achieve a management position in a GmbH. According to the Schufa, around 30 percent of all individual companies, which include tradespeople and freelancers, are run by women. In the partnerships and corporations examined, only around 20.6 percent have at least one woman on the top floor.