The parties in Angela Merkel’s coalition government have agreed to introduce a mandatory quota for women in the senior management of listed German companies, in a move that has been hailed as a big step on the road to sexual equality in the German workplace.
Franziska Giffey, minister for families and women, called the deal a historic breakthrough. “We are putting an end to women-free C-suites in big companies,” she said, adding that the attempt to encourage firms to hire more female executives on a voluntary basis had failed.
According to a deal agreed by Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their junior partner the Social Democrats, management boards with more than three members must in future include at least one woman. A system of voluntary commitments to gender equality, in force since 2015, failed to yield results.
Equality advocates were jubilant. “Great, great joy,” tweeted Jutta Allmendinger, a sociology professor at Berlin’s Humboldt…