“We are ending women-free boardrooms in large companies,” said Franzisca Giffe, Minister of Women and Families, who called the decision a “historic milestone”.
But business lobby groups pushed back on the decision. The Federation of German Industries (BDI), which represents 40 trade groups, said it supports efforts to encourage women to be appointed to leadership positions, but added that fixed board quotas are “a major interference in entrepreneurial freedom.”
Iris Pluger, a member of the BDI’s executive board, said in a statement that the tendency of the economy and companies to try to fix socio-political problems would not be the norm. “To make it easier for everyone to balance work and family life,” he added, pointing to the need to expand the digital infrastructure, adding that “politicians should be more courageous, given the reasons why there are so few women on the company’s board.”
Pluger said companies should be given “as long as possible” to comply with the new measures and be protected from sanctions where it is “practically not possible” to meet requirements.
Germany lags far behind the larger economies when it comes to the proportion of senior executive positions held by women. According to the for-profit Swedish-Germanite Labite Foundation, women make up only 12.8% of the management boards of Germany’s 30 largest listed companies.
By comparison, 28.6% of leading companies in the United States have hired women for senior leadership roles, 24.9% in Sweden, 24.5% in Britain and 22.2% in France.
According to Mend Lamandinger, the decision to introduce quotas has been the subject of decades-long lobbying by women in Germany on issues related to gender equality in the workplace. “The long stalemate has finally been broken, when leading Rs.
Over the past few months, women from business, civil society, academia, and the arts have been participating in an integrated campaign to push for legislation to be incorporated through social media and the hashtags #jetztracts and #ichwill, which means Enough If Enough.
“Despite our success, we still have a long way to go,” Olmendinger said, referring to the need to widen structural inequalities in the governing body in the tax system in favor of male breadwinners. He added, “The gender issue is just one important dimension.
According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, Germany adopted mandatory quotas for supervisory boards in 2015, which has resulted in women now accounting for 36% of the non-executive board role in large companies. Under the country’s corporate governance system, the supervisory board oversees the management board, but does not make decisions in day-to-day operations.
The other five EU countries – Belgium, France, Italy, Riyadh and Portugal – have adopted mandatory gender quotas for boards of large listed companies.
Norway was the first country in the world to legislate on gender quotas for corporate boards, requiring women to fill 40% of board seats.
– Reportin contributed by Stephanie Halaz and Mark ThompsonG.
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