Germany lags behind in boardroom gender equality

At the beginning of March, Petra Scharner-Wolff took over as CEO of Otto Group, a German conglomerate.

In Germany, Otto is an iconic company best known for its huge catalogs, a copy of which sat in many homes across the country for decades. In its heyday, the Otto catalog came out twice a year, had over 1,000 pages and included everything from clothing and toys to entire bedroom sets.

Today, Otto no longer prints its catalog but has transformed into one of the world's largest e-commerce platforms. Last year, the privately owned company had around 38,500 employees and brought in €15 billion ($15.7 billion) in revenue. Its namesake Otto online platform offers 18 million items for sale.

The change in the boardroom means the Otto family won't be directly in charge for the first time in the company's history. Scharner-Wolff's elevation is also a small victory for equality in the country's male-dominated business world. 

Germany behind in boardroom gender equality

One way to measure gender equality is counting women in leadership roles in companies. Though an imperfect measure since it doesn't count all women in the job market or take gender pay gaps into account, the idea has caught on.

Looking at 160 big publicly listed companies in Germany in March 2025, women made up 19.7% of their executive leadership teams and 37.4% of their boards of directors, according to a report by the AllBright Foundation, a Swedish-German nonprofit that promotes more women and diversity in businesses.

Overall, there were 561 men and 138 women on the executive leadership teams.

Looking at the 40 blue-chip companies listed in the German DAX stock market index, just eight had three or more women on their executive leadership team. Porsche Holding is the only one without any.

Part of the problem is a conservative corporate culture in the country, says Wiebke Ankersen, co-director of the AllBright Foundation. "Companies have been doing very well for a long time and there wasn't enough pressure to change," Ankersen told DW.

Blame it all on nature?

There are additional problems like tax rules that discourage married women from working. "There is also a lack of tens of thousands of missing daycare places," Ankersen said. "Women in Germany often only work a few hours a week or below their qualification level and don't even pursue a management career."

There are several other reasons for Germany's low share of women in management positions, says Katharina Wrohlich, head of the Gender Economics Research Group at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin.  

"One significant factor is the prevailing gender norms in the labor market," said Wrohlich, who is also a professor of public finance, gender and family economics at the University of Potsdam. "Social attitudes toward full-time employment for mothers with young children are often negative, which adversely affects women's opportunities for leadership roles."

These deeply rooted gender stereotypes in corporate culture often get in the way. "Both fathers and mothers should be allowed to take time off for family reasons and have the option to work part-time," Wrohlich told DW. Afterward it is important that companies encourage them to return to full-time work.

Germany has gone the legal route

Over the past two decades, Wrohlich has seen some improvement but says Germany is still far from achieving gender parity. Looking forward though "it remains uncertain whether we will continue to see positive developments in the future," she said.

"We have seen a positive development over the past five years, albeit at a low level," agreed Wiebke Ankersen. "It has become difficult to present a board without a single woman on it as it is no longer socially accepted. Awareness of equal opportunities and diversity has grown and expectations of companies have increased."

Still, at the current rate it will take another 15 years to have as many women as men in management and decision-making positions in German companies. "We simply can't wait that long," said Ankersen.

The country has two pieces of legislation mandating gender quotas for most publicly listed companies. The first enacted in 2015 requires supervisory boards to be made up of at least 30% women.

A second piece of legislation enacted in 2021 requires executive boards of publicly listed companies with more than three members to have at least one woman. These companies also have to set targets to increase female representation in other top management levels.

The European Union takes action

On the European Union level there are similar rules to promote gender equality in leadership positions that will come into force in June 2026.

Since 2010, the representation of women on corporate boards has improved in most EU member states, but progress varies from country to country. 

"In 2024, women accounted for 39.6% of the board members of the largest listed companies in countries with binding gender quotas, compared to 33.8% in countries with soft measures, and just 17% in countries that have taken no action at all," according to the EU Commission.

Otto is a household name in Germany

Because most gender equality rules are for public companies, family-owned businesses are slightly worse at getting women into leadership roles in Germany, according to another study by the AllBright Foundation published in May 2024.

Of the 100 biggest family-owned companies in Germany, women represented 12.6% of executive leadership teams. Out of the 100 companies, 53 didn't have any women in their leadership teams at all.

In this regard Otto Group is better than the average. The new CEO Petra Scharner-Wolff has been on the executive board since 2015. Her old job as chief financial officer will be filled by another woman and company insider, Katy Roewer. Now the six-person executive board will have two women and four men.

Roewer already has a four-day week to have a better work-life balance as a busy mother and intends to keep that schedule in her new role. 

Edited by: Uwe Hessler