Germany Belatedly Adopting True Workplace Equality - Building Gender Balanced Business

German law requires that men and women be treated equally at work; labour contracts that once specified that women be paid 80 percent of the male rate are long gone. But by no means has Germany achieved equality in the work place.

• Men earn on average 24 percent more per hour than women, among the widest gender pay gaps in Europe.

• A study comparing men and women in the same jobs at the same firms found that women earned 88 percent of what men did.

• Of the 200 people on the executive boards of the 30 DAX blue chip companies, exactly one is a woman.

• The government — headed by a woman, Chancellor Angela Merkel — is pushing a multibillion-euro plan to expand child care and is encouraging fathers to take paternity leave.

The Washington Post article, hosted by the San Francisco Chronicle