Germany is among the world’s most economically advanced societies but it also is among the most backward nations when it comes to hiring women to serve in the role of professors at its universities. Only one in six professors in German universities are women but the Education Ministry is addressing the gap by offering funding to those institutions which will hire more female lecturers and professors. Germany may be led by a woman but it has an enormous gap in hiring women for top executive positions or for paying them on an equal basis with men. Women now constitute 50 percent of the student body at universities but only 40% of those pursuing doctorates while 24% of lecturers are female and a paltry 15% of the nation’s 38,000 tenured professors are women.
The government has committed nearly $300 million to its equal opportunity program for women which seeks to add 200 additional posts for highly-qualified female academics. Each post will be funded for up to five years to the tune of $300,000 a year with the state and federal government sharing costs. To obtain the funding, a university has to submit evidence it is committed to sexual equity for its faculty.