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Germany: most unfair society in Europe
Published: 5 Mar 12 16:39 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120305-41155.html
German women have to contend with the biggest gender gaps in wages and career opportunities in Europe, according to a new study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
- Economists warn against German euro exit (18 May 13)
- Germany cool to France's EU economy plan (17 May 13)
- Au pairs rules relax for non-German families (17 May 13)
Of OECD countries, only Japan and Korea have a bigger average wage gap.
Germany's gap is even bigger in the public sector, where women earn 23 percent less than men.
The OECD expressly criticised the lack of women in management positions in Germany. “When it comes to women in leading positions, Germany is lagging a long way behind in international comparison,” the survey said.
According to the stats, only three percent of German management board seats are occupied by women, the lowest figure in Europe, and well behind Japan, Mexico, the US, and Russia.
The OECD average is 10 percent, while countries closer to Germany, like France, Sweden, Finland and Slovakia all have between 15 and 20 percent on management boards.
Many countries, including Spain, Iceland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, are considering imposing gender quotas on management boards, and the European Commission is also putting pressure on leading European companies to improve its gender quota. Germany has so far declined to take this step, despite the damning figures.
The OECD identified Germany’s underdeveloped childcare infrastructure as one of the key reasons for the poor results. The lack of kindergarten and day-care places is hindering many women from getting back into work, the organisation said. Only 18 percent of German children under the age of two have access to day-care – around half the OECD average.
The Local/bk
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Your comments about this article:
You can try to do NOTHING about it and ascribe it to something that you can DISMISS TOTALLY. Just as the two comments do, above this one.
The Saudis use this approach. It doesn't look pretty.
Perhaps some wage-discrepancy can be laid to career-lifestyles, but it doesn't follow that the German-females are so-different than other European females.
This will be a fun thread to watch...
Who made women this way? Men...
Just get a pedophile priest... and we will have a party!!
What's wrong with women? I say absolutely nothing.
What if God were to remove all of them from the earth?
Does the word racist mean anything to you?
What about sexist pig?
If anyone in this world have little, if any value, it is people like yourself. You are a pisspoor example of a stone age behemoth. I will assume that you were likely a military man, as you sound like you share many beliefs with some who post here.
Germany has many thousand Mittelstand companys that are in export in technical stuff. Men in UK or USA just dont have this opportunities!
Maybe German females are not so different than other europeans BUT the german economy with the many thousand Mittelstand companys is!
The same goes for executives many of this companys are run NOT by people who have studied economics, but are engineers etc. and thats also why they are successful. And thats also why germany pays so much into the EU!
Also in the state just 18% of university professors are woman! because there is also a lot of technical stuff.
So the career chances are clearly there but woman would have to be MEN and dont want to give birth to kids, because the child day care is bad. And stop study economics, or basic school teacher and start study electrical engineering!
Thats why gender mainstreaming is bs. Woman need help to combine kids and career. And they have just different interests. statistics of how many woman study technical stuff just shows this. Or how many do an apprenticeship in an technical job.
So if you compare Germany with UK its just not a fair comparison because in UK also the men earn sh!t. (let a few in London out).
But ofcourse its a tragedy that 3/4 of people in low paid jobs are woman.
And the first """""female""""" chancellor ever does nothing!
That kills two birds with one stone. More day care, and the woman is the boss and can make millions of euros by filling the day care need.
(Can Germans do anything for themselves or must the government do it all i.e., must the govenrment open day care centers?)
@catjones: "German women have themselves to blame." Really? This is as reasonable as the argument that bigots use against women who are raped ("they deserve it for dressing that way...being so sexy...[fill in the blank]"). Open your mind and question those assumptions.
Really? A daycare? That is the best you can suggest for women. Your outdated attitudes about women and competency are obvious.
@carlm......with your racist,sexist, right wing BS....why don't you just get the hell out of here? You are a typical American male who has never grown beyond the beliefs he was raised with.
Go to bed with Monsanto. Abuse and exploit animals and tell us that this is the best humanity can do. tell YOUR country your BS beliefs, but SPARE US!
And the government has nothing todo with this.
There were already before WW2 more family companys in GER as in UK,France.
But the idea is good, why has it to be state owned and run child day care.
If private would do this that could go much quicker.
And as you said already more woman would be there own boss and would earn more.
Yah right! why not if there is demand there has to be supply.
But maybe the problem is with funding.
@carlm less value dont think so, but its true that woman often chose those jobs that pay bad. and this is atleast not the fault of men.
but different interests. or that this jobs, social, retail trade, etc are just not good enough paid. but the thing is often technical jobs can earn the companys more money.
carlm is the typical US er
So, is this due to the fact that the males of other races and females are discriminated against by employers? Or are there inherent differences in the intellectual capabilities of sexes and races?
Far more men than women major in the hard sciences. Why?
Therein lies a problem because they are run by churches protestant and catholic and so teach children the same old (floored) beliefs as always .
But children must go to school by law and in many towns there is no secular education till second school.
Which is why I think the state should and must be involved with anything involving children from schools to daycare to provide a safe and secure place for them.
In the US, home- and parochial-schooled children far outperform those educated in government secular schools by unionized teachers for whom what's most important isn't education of the children, but union matters regarding wages and benefits.
Having written that, the two most important factors for determining a child's performance in school are the child's family (does it place an emphasis on education, reading, etc.) and the child's IQ. There's only so much that can be accomplished by teachers and cirriculum.
Of course, the parochial (religious) schools emphasis reading, math, and science. Hence, students of such schools out score public (secular) school students on all tests for these subjects. In other words, while there is religious instruction, parochial students aren't memorizing the Bible.
In fact,all Lutheran schools' students in the US do very well on national, standardized tests.
Long lasting progress could look like human beings all over the earth having an innate ability and outlook to see that everyone is in the end a human being. Gender, income, strength, everything else is secondary.
How about a proactive solution to eliminate bathrooms for men and women and make them unisexual?
How about making gender-unbiased toys for children?
Now, on to the subject of the article. The gender gap has to be the least of Germany's problems right now. The biggest issues are the 1 euro job scam and the aging population
The 1 euro jobs have killed off any incentive for anyone to work in Germany. When I lived in Germany in the 80s, if I ran out of money, there were always lots of dishwasher jobs available, or something equally lousy, which paid fairly well and I could get myself back on track financially and even save a bit. Now, all those jobs are gone to 1 euro jobs and are only open to those on Hartz.
The aging population is another issue. Recently, Audi created 120 new training positions for school leavers, leading to full-time employment. Only 100 kids applied. In Bavaria, they are importing school-leavers from Bulgaria to train in careers the German kids can't fill or are not interested in. Already the number of pensioners has overtaken the number of workers and this number is only increasing. Factor in the 1 euro jobbers who are not paying into pension funds and Germany will have a nice disaster in about 20 years.
As for a gender gap, I was always under the impression it was the polar opposite. Every job ad has to say the feminine form as well as the masculine and I always saw plenty of women in positions of power. On the other hand, I hardly know any kids living in a family of 2 parents who are married to each other.
Government meddling, with the intention of imposing some sort of supposed fairness, drives up the cost of production by requiring more employees, or results in reduced production This increase in cost of producing a unit of whatever goods, or services the employer is selling makes the employer less competetive with others selling similar products and will eventually result in reduced demand for the product and the employees who produce it.
Good employers value productive employees who make them money and will accomodate their needs for time off, etc., within reasonable limits. But, only the employer can know what is reasonable to a particular business, not politicians and bureaucrats with no knowledge of the specific circumstances of each individual operation. In an unregulated market, the more productive employees will have better jobs, with better employers and higher pay, which is as it should be. Anyone who wishes to earn more, needs to learn more and do more, making themselves a more valuable product, not beg government to force employers to pay them more than they are worth.
This research is so old, it's unbelievable I have to mention it. People hire other people who look, act, and talk like themselves. Meaning, that if men are doing the hiring, they will hire other men...unless, there is some incentive to hire women and minorities who are equally qualified.
No firm should be given a public contract unless they have a diverse workforce, and that includes management. And, the hiring process used by these firms needs to be inclusive and involve specific outreach to women and minorities. This idea that we'll hire any qualified woman "who walks through the door" is baloney. I have watched that in action, and it was nothing more than an excuse to hire a good 'ol boy.