The German news magazine Der Spiegel published the research conducted by management consultants McKinsey. The study looked at 362 companies listed on the stock exchanges of 11 leading economies.  Germany came in joint last place with India. Sweden topped the list, with 17 percent of executive jobs filled by women. The United States and Britain were just behind the Scandinavians, with 14 percent.

In Germany, there are very few women at the top of leading companies. The two major exceptions are Barbara Kux of Siemens, and Regine Stachelhaus, who was appointed as head of human resources at the German energy giant E.ON in the summer of 2010. She previously directed UN children’s fund Unicef in Germany.

Germany performed slightly better in terms of the number of women sitting on boards of directors. According to the McKinsey study, women filled 13 percent of positions on such boards in German companies. But Scandinavian countries topped this table as well. In Norway, 32 percent of board members are female, while in Sweden 27 percent are women.

Source: DW – Joanna Impey

Interesting, how enormously Germany’s position in gender equality rankings varies! It obviously  depends all on how gender equality is measured! The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index recently ranked Germany among the states with the highest gender equality, mainly due to the fact that the head of state is female in Germany at the moment.

See  related articles on this blog:

“Gender Gap Index: Gender equality much higher in Germany than in France”

“Fairness in Families Index to measure family friendly policies”

See related article on Miriam Meckel’s blog:

Aliens in skirts. Why women are still underrepresented in Germany’s economy.