Germany's Gender Quota Law (FüPoG) — Mandatory 30% Female Representation on Supervisory Boards

Germany's Führungspositionen-Gesetz (FüPoG, "Leadership Positions Act") took effect in May 2015, imposing a binding 30% minimum quota for the underrepresented gender on the supervisory boards of roughly 100–108 listed companies subject to full co-determination (Section 96(2), Stock Corporation Act). A follow-up law, FüPoG II (2021), extended obligations to management boards, requiring firms with more than three executive-board seats to include at least one woman.

A DIW Berlin discussion paper ("Gender Quotas in the Boardroom: New Evidence from Germany") used the staggered introduction of the quota to identify its effect and found a clear, positive increase in the female share of supervisory boards at bound firms — but no measurable effect on who holds the board chair or on board size, suggesting the quota changed board composition without disturbing the top leadership hierarchy.

A decade after the law took effect, women held 37.5% of supervisory board seats across the private sector overall (up from 19.9% in 2015), and the roughly 100 companies directly bound by the quota reached 38.6% — figures independently tracked by the monitoring association FidAR (Frauen in die Aufsichtsräte e.V.) and reported via Reuters/AFP wire coverage. The quota has since become a partial template for the EU's binding Women on Boards Directive (2022/2381).

Read the full analysis: https://www.fidar.de/