Female CEOs vanish from leading German companies, study finds

The number of women at the helm of Germany's top companies is shrinking, according to a study that deals a blow to the government's aim for greater gender equality.

Female chief executive officers at Germany's 200 largest firms by revenue numbered nine in late 2023, down from 10 in 2022 and 14 in 2021, according to the study by the DIW economic institute on Wednesday.

"The CEO role is unfortunately still a bastion for men," wrote Virginia Sondergeld, one of the report's authors.

The decline in top positions at the non-financial companies surveyed contrasts with a rise in female management board representation, which was 17.5 percent in 2023 compared with 15.6 percent in 2022.

The study found 44 percent of firms have no women on their management boards, 40 percent a single woman and only 16 percent are two or more.

"The bottom line is that women are still clearly under-represented," the authors wrote.

DIW, one of Germany's most important economic research institutes, has been tracking developments since 2006.

When German Chancellor Olaf Scholz formed a new coalition government in 2021, the three-party alliance agreed that "equality of men and women must be reached in this decade" and vowed to tackle the country's gender pay gap, one of the highest in Europe.