11/03/2025November 3, 2025
Women hold fewer than one-third of leadership roles in Germany
Women remain markedly underrepresented in executive positions across Germany, with only 29.1% of leadership roles held by women in 2024, according to figures published by the Federal Statistical Office.
About 1.32 million men and 540,000 women occupied management positions in 2024, leaving Germany well below the EU average of 35.2% leadership roles filled by women. Sweden led the bloc with 44.4% female representation, followed by Latvia (43.4%) and Poland (41.8%).
Germany’s share of female managers has barely changed in a decade, rising only 0.1 percentage points since 2014. Over the same period, the EU average increased by 3.4 points, with the largest gains seen in Sweden, Estonia, Cyprus, and Malta.
That means that Germany ranked sixth from bottom among all EU states, trailed only by the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Croatia and Cyprus.
The disparity is notable given Germany’s near-equal overall employment rate between women and men. Women accounted for 46.9% of the workforce in 2024 — slightly above the EU average — yet remain underrepresented in leadership.
Management roles in the data include company executives, department heads, and senior public-sector officials.
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