Share of women in German supervisory boards doubled since 2015
As of April 1, women made up 37.5% of supervisory board members in private-sector companies, almost double the share from a decade ago (19.9%), when Germany's first law on leadership quotas took effect in May 2015. In public-sector companies, the figure reached 38.9%, compared to 24.1% in 2015.
The share of women on executive boards also rose sharply, quadrupling among listed companies from 5% to 20.2% and more than doubling in public-sector firms to 31% (2015: 13.1%).
The latest data is based on Fidar's Women-on-Board Index, which monitors 160 firms from Germany's DAX, MDAX and SDAX indices and 19 other listed companies. Its separate public-sector index covers 261 organizations.
Women's Affairs Minister Lisa Paus said the legal quotas are working, according to a Fidar statement marking 10 years since the quota came into effect. She added that the target of 30% women in the supervisory boards of about 100 major German companies had been achieved.
To bring more women into top management, new rules from the German government have been introduced. Since 2016, a quota of 30% women has applied for the replacement of supervisory boards in listed and co-determined companies.
Since the summer of 2022, large companies with boards having more than three members must also have at least one woman on the executive committee.
However, Fidar president Anja Seng warned that progress had only been made due to political pressure and called for quotas to be extended. "We should apply the effective quota rules to all listed companies or those with more than 500 employees," she said.
According to Seng, only 100 listed and co-determined companies are subject to the supervisory board quota, while the minimum participation requirement for executive boards applies to just 61 private-sector companies and 43 state-owned entities.
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