Facts, Facts, Facts

I was shocked when I realised that here in Bavaria people tend to measure how good mother you are by the amount of months you stay at home after your child is born, but I will talk about the comments I have heard and how I cope with them in another post.

I want to share some facts about the situation of working women in Germany in the post today. I am working in IT, so it is usually always much less women than men. However as I have worked in other countries and had business meetings in US and many countries in Europe, such as UK, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium or Denmark, it has been clear for me that in Germany there are even less women working than in other countries, and of course the percentage is even lower in management positions. I share my impression and my experience, but as I like science and statistics, and I know that the experience of one person is not statistically relevant to jump to a conclusion, I have been searching for the situation in Germany in the media.

This article of New York times talks about how difficult is to empower women in Germany (even when the president is a woman - but here I want to clarify "Merkel is not a mother!"). I was reading this article and thinking "oh yes, this is so true". It explains how only about 14 percent of German mothers with one child resume full-time work, and only 6 percent of those with two. Which is fine, if this is a free decision. But I think what is sad is what a SAP Board Member mentions in her interview "When you have children, you’re expected to stay home for a significant period; otherwise you are considered a bad mother.".This diagram from the article shows the comparison between different countries of the share of women in corporate boards and Executive Committees, where Germany is closer to India and Brazil than to other European Countries or US:

Is there also a difference in the salaries? Yes there is - according to the European Union report about gender gap, on average women in the EU earn around 16% less per hour than men. The gender pay

gap varies across Europe. No surprise the biggest gap is in Germany with 22.4% and Austria with 23%.

This report of the OECD gives more information about the percentage of families working full time. The percentage of parents working full time with children from 0-14 years old (around 17%) is one of the lowest of the OECD countries, whereas the US percentage is one of the highest (around 71%).

I had already heard that many women stayed at home, but I always thought it was a free choice. What I did not expect is that the society wants you to be at home when you have a child, and this is what I experience every day, and what I am going to explain in my next posts.