Women remain significantly underrepresented in Germany’s executive leadership. According to data from the European statistics agency Eurostat, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Monday, in 2025, only 569,100 women held leadership positions, compared to approximately 1.31 million men. This figure means that women comprised 30.3% of leadership roles, falling below the European Union (EU) average of 35.9%. In the EU comparison, Sweden leads with a high female proportion of 44.4%, followed by Latvia (43.8%) and Estonia (43.1%). Cypriot, Italian, and Dutch executives show notably lower female representation, at 25.9%, 28.6%, and 30.0% respectively.
Looking at the long-term trends, the share of female executives in Germany has seen a slight increase over the past decade, rising 1.0 percentage point from 29.3% in 2015 to 30.3% in 2025. Meanwhile, the EU average increased by 4.0 percentage points during the same period. Some countries experienced particularly strong growth, including Malta (+13.9 percentage points), Estonia (+12.0 percentage points), and Austria (+7.5 percentage points). Despite some minor declines-such as in Slovenia (-1.2 percentage points), Lithuania (-1.0 percentage points), and Latvia (-0.5 percentage points)-Latvia continues to maintain a female leadership proportion above the EU average.
The gering proportion of women in high-level management in Germany is especially striking because women’s participation in the labor force is almost equal to that of men. In 2025, women accounted for 47.1% of all employees, slightly surpassing the EU average of 46.5%. This differs significantly from Italy, where the female leadership rate (28.6%) is similar to Germany’s, yet women comprise a lower percentage of the overall workforce at 42.6%. In contrast, Austria shows a much higher proportion of women in leadership positions (37.2%), despite having a nearly identical female employment rate (47.5%) to Germany.
A closer look at governmental leadership shows a higher representation of women compared to private sector executive ranks in Germany. According to data from the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) in the third quarter of 2026, women made up 42.6% of government members in Germany, placing the country above the EU average of 33.5%. Finland leads the EU in governmental female representation with 56.7% of its government members being women, closely followed by Denmark (52.4%) and Sweden, where the government is equally divided (50.0%). The lowest percentages in government are found in the Czech Republic (12.5%), Slovakia (13.7%), and Cyprus (16.7%).
