Recent comments by the vice president of the European Commission, Viviane Reding, suggest that from 2015, a minimum of 30% of top managerial positions in large organisations should be female, and from 2020, 40% of the boards and supervisory boards have to be made up by women. However, the latest survey by eFinancialCareers.de shows there is still much work to be done in the German banking and financial services sector where the majority of those professionals surveyed (60%) believe that women currently account for 10% or less of the senior level appointments in their firms.
Further, the overwhelming majority (92%) of female financial professionals surveyed believe that career opportunities for women are more limited than for men in Germany with 93% of female respondents feeling there are more barriers in the workplace for women to overcome than for men to be able to reach a top managerial position.
Key perceived barriers were the general “boys club” notion in board rooms, issues around parental leave, child care and support, and lower remuneration levels for women.
By comparison, nearly half of the men surveyed (49%) felt that career opportunities for women are more limited. Likewise, less than half of men (45%) believed that there are more barriers for women than men to overcome to progress to the top.
Looking forward though, 78% of the male financial professionals surveyed by eFinancialCareers.de did believe that the number of women in senior positions will increase in the next five years in the sector; in comparison, only 56% of women thought the same.
With regards to the issue of potentially introducing a fixed quota for senior female appointments in Germany, only 9% of men however said they would support such a move. In comparison, just over half (52%) of the women said they were in favour this.
Perhaps surprisingly though, only 16% of women said they would prefer a female line manager. However, the majority (71%) had no preference with only 13% saying they would prefer a male line manager.
James Bennett, Geschäftsführer für EMEA &APAC bei eFinancialCareers.com, added:
“Clearly the viewpoints of male and female financial professionals in Germany differ profoundly. However, based on the results of our survey, there is a broad agreement that female representation at senior levels will increase in the years ahead. This is being driven by the belief that firms are becoming increasingly family friendly and that there will be greater rules and regulations in place in Germany to support equal opportunities.”
The eFinancialCareers.de online survey of 212 German financial professionals took place during April 2011. Of those surveyed 41% were women, of which 43% held front office positions and 64% had more than 5 years experience in the financial services sector.
