The proportion of women on savings bank boards is increasing only minimally.
(Photo: imago/Winfried Rothermel)
Frankfurt The proportion of women on savings bank boards remains at a low level. Within a year, by the end of September 2022, it rose by 0.2 percentage points to 6.3 percent, as calculated by the analysis company Barkow Consulting.
Currently, at the beginning of October, Barkow counts 57 women and 829 men on the boards of the nationwide 360 savings banks. This puts the proportion at 6.4 percent. At least one woman sits on the board of 51 savings banks, six of which have two women on the top committee.
The low proportion of women on the boards of the savings banks is particularly striking because the majority of employees (60 percent) are women. In addition, the number of female board members is growing very slowly. In 2000, the proportion of women was 3.4 percent.
Among the 20 largest savings banks, there is only one institute that is headed by a woman. Karin-Brigitte Göbel is the head of Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf.
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As in previous years, the German Savings Banks Association (DSGV) praises improvement: “Germany is multifaceted and diverse – and people rightly expect this to be reflected in the boards of savings banks.” The DSGV explains the current proportion of women: “It is our aim that this changes. It is positive that the share from the level below is around 28 percent.”
Several decades until something noticeably changes
If the proportion of women on executive boards continues to grow as it has recently, it will still take several decades before anything noticeably changes. “If you continue the last trend, a 30 percent rate will be reached towards the end of the century, namely in 2092,” explains Barkow. Barkow currently registers significantly more board members – a total of 92 – with the first names Thomas and Michael than women in total.
The head of Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf is one of the few women at the head of a savings bank.
(Photo: Stadtsparkasse Düsseldorf)
There are even fewer women on the boards of the roughly 750 cooperative banks – and here, too, the increase is microscopic. At the end of 2021 it was only 4.6 percent, according to their lobby association BVR. A year earlier it was 4.5 percent, a good ten years ago 1.5 percent.
The BVR explains the small change, among other things, by the fact that only a small number of board positions are filled every year. He assumes that the higher proportion of women in management will also have an impact on the Executive Board in the medium to long term. Below the Management Board, the proportion of female executives is a good 28 percent.
At least women are represented on the governing bodies of the two lobby groups. Marija Kolak has been BVR President since 2018. In the future, Tanja Müller-Ziegler, currently a board member of Berliner Sparkasse, will also be a member of the BVR board. At DSGV, Karolin Schriever was the first woman to take on a board position.
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