Women in top management – ​​Germany lags behind

Women are significantly less represented in top management positions in Germany than in other European countries. In 2024, around 1.32 million men held leadership positions in Germany , while only 540,000 women were counted in top positions, as the Federal Statistical Office announced on Monday. This corresponds to a share of 29.1 percent. "This figure was significantly below the European Union (EU) average of 35.2 percent," the Federal Statistical Office concluded.

Sweden once again tops the EU rankings with 44.4 percent female representation in management positions. Latvia (43.4 percent) and Poland (41.8 percent) also recorded relatively high rates. Cyprus brings up the rear, with only 25.3 percent of managers being women.

Since 2014, the proportion of female managers in Germany has remained virtually unchanged: at 29.0 percent, it was only 0.1 percentage points lower than at 29.1 percent in 2024. In contrast, the EU average for the proportion of female managers rose by 3.4 percentage points during this period. The growth was particularly strong in Sweden (+7.3 percentage points), Estonia (+7.2), and the island nations of Cyprus (+7.8) and Malta (+10.3).

The development is "worrying, but unfortunately not surprising given the political reality in Germany," said Bettina Kohlrausch, scientific director of the Institute for Economic and Social Research (WSI) of the Hans Böckler Foundation, which is affiliated with the trade unions. Women are hampered in their career options because paid work is extremely difficult to reconcile with care work, which is still predominantly performed by women.

“Currently, there are no political discussions, let alone proposals, to change this,” said Kohlrausch. On the contrary, the currently debated abolition of daily working time limits would make it more difficult for women to reconcile work and family life and would likely reinforce gender-specific patterns in the distribution of paid and unpaid work. “What we need instead are working time regulations that create planning security and increase the flexibility within families to fairly distribute unpaid work,” the expert demanded.

The statistics office also pointed out another issue: "The low proportion of women in management positions in Germany is particularly striking, given that almost as many women as men are employed." Their share of the total workforce in 2024 was 46.9 percent, slightly above the EU average (46.4 percent). In contrast, the proportion of women in management positions in Italy, at 27.9 percent, was similar to that in Germany, although women made up a lower proportion of the total workforce at 42.5 percent. In Austria, on the other hand, the proportion of women in top positions was significantly higher at 36.2 percent than in Germany, despite a similar proportion of women in the total workforce (47.5 percent).