On 1 May 2004 eight former socialist countries - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Republic of Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia - joined the European Union. In the accession year the new EU member states have experienced powerful macroeconomic dynamics, and convergence of...

German exports suffered a sharp decline during the international economic and financial crisis. But recently a strong turnaround has taken place. Macroeconomic stimulus measures in numerous countries have likely contributed to this export recovery. Germany's manufacturers are at the forefront of...

Across Europe, there are much fewer women than men employed in executive positions. On European average, only 10% of the members of the highest decision-making bodies in the top 50 publicly quoted companies are women. However, the situation varies substantially from country to country. The...

In June 2004 only about one tenth of all the seats on the boards of the 200 biggest companies worldwide were held by women. In 22 of these companies women held at least 25% of the seats on the board. Three of the companies were German. Here the percentage is made up entirely of women who...

Women hold only 7.8% of the supervisory board posts in the 200 biggest companies (Top 200) in Germany - outside finance -, and three of four (76.0%) are worker´s representation delegates. More than one third of these companies do not have a woman on the supervisory board at all. The share of...

The share of women on the supervisory boards (Aufsichts- und Verwaltungsräte) of the big banks, savings banks and insurance companies in Germany is low. In the banking sector it is 15% and in insurance 11%. That women are to be found on most supervisory or administrative boards is mainly...

For years, the difference between the gross hourly earnings of women and of men has remained constant for German white-collar employees at about 30 percent. It is obvious that regional factors play an important role in explaining this difference. In rural areas, the gender pay gap is especially...

Since the reunification of Germany, average working times for men and women have followed different trends. There are various reasons for the difference. More and more women are gainfully employed; they engage in part-time and marginal employment, both of which are on the rise. The importance of...

Executive and supervisory boards of large companies in Germany are still dominated by men - to an extraordinary degree. Only 2.5% of all executive board members in the200 largest companies (not including the financial sector) are women, and only 10% of all seats on supervisory boards are...

The executive boards1 of Germany's 200 largest companies are still almost all male. In 2010, women occupied only 3.2% of all board seats. This negligible percentage is even lower in the top 100 and DAX30 companies, which are only 2.2% female, despite a voluntary commitment dating back to 2001,...