Report of January 16, 2013
In the financial sector, women represent the majority of employees, but it is still men who remain in the top positions. With women making up only 4.2 percent of the boards of the largest banks and savings banks at the end of 2012, they are still very much underrepresented (up 1 percentage point from the end of 2011). The story is similar on the boards of the major insurance companies. The situation is somewhat better on supervisory boards: at the largest banks and savings banks, women made up 17.8 percent of all board members at the end of 2012 (up 1.2 points), and 15.3 percent at insurance companies (up 2.2 points). The vast majority of these women are still employee representatives-even though more women are being appointed by the shareholders. If the financial sector does not make significant progress in achieving more representation for women in top decisionmaking bodies in the foreseeable future, then political pressure on them to do so will probably increase. This also applies to top positions in the ECB and the Financial Market Authority.
Elke Holst and Julia Schimeta in: DIW Wochenbericht 3/2013 (PDF, 177.43 KB)