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Germany’s boardroom gender progress reverses after a decade of gains

A decade of slow but steady progress unravels as Germany’s top firms see fewer women in leadership. What’s behind the sudden backslide?

,   and  Administrator
2 min read
Here in this picture we can see a white board present, on which we can see photographs of different...
Here in this picture we can see a white board present, on which we can see photographs of different women's stuck on it all over there.

Dax and MDax: Fewer Women in the Boards - Germany’s boardroom gender progress reverses after a decade of gains

Progress towards gender equality in Germany’s top boardrooms has stalled. For the first time in a decade, the share of women on the executive boards of DAX and MDAX firms fell in 2025. This decline breaks years of gradual improvement in female representation at the highest corporate levels.

Among nine European countries surveyed, only Sweden experienced a similar drop in women’s boardroom presence. The reversal raises questions about the pace of change in Germany’s largest listed companies.

In 2025, women held 25.5 percent of executive branch seats in the DAX, a slight decrease of 0.2 percentage points from the previous year. The MDAX saw a larger decline, with female representation dropping by 0.4 points to 19.5 percent. This ends a ten-year trend of rising numbers in the mid-cap index.

Despite the overall decline, four DAX companies now have women making up over half of their executive branches. Beiersdorf, Merck, MTU, and Siemens Healthineers all exceed 50 percent female representation. Yet at the other end of the scale, Porsche and Brenntag have no women on their boards at all. The data also reveals a persistent pattern in the roles women occupy. Female executives remain disproportionately concentrated in human resources positions rather than operational business divisions. This imbalance suggests deeper structural challenges in achieving true gender parity. Germany’s performance in gender diversity now ranks sixth for the DAX and second-to-last for the MDAX among comparable European indices. Norway continues to lead, with over one-third of its board seats held by women. The contrast highlights the varying speeds of progress across the continent.

The 2025 figures mark a setback for gender diversity in Germany’s corporate leadership. With the DAX and MDAX both recording declines, the trend underscores the fragility of progress made over the past decade. The findings also point to ongoing disparities in the types of roles women hold at the executive level.

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