Women, Men and Success: Means to Achieving the Goal

Project lead
Prof. Dr. Paulina Jedrzejczyk

Project duration
October 2019 – December 2022

Cooperation partner
Jagiellonian University, Poland

Although the promotion of women in careers has been a topic of discussion for years, there has been surprisingly little movement in the issue of gender gaps : Based on an evaluation of labour market data compiled by the Statistisches Bundesamt (Federal Statistical Office), the percentage of women in leadership positions in Germany in the year 2017 was at 29.2%; 20 years ago this figure was 26.6%.

This issues has only been intensified by the Corona crisis, as women - but also men - are falling back into traditional roles more often: while men go to work in the mornings, women stay at home and have to manage home schooling, childcare and the household. This threatens the significant amount of progress made in terms of equal opportunities for both genders in many different ways. (Sources: Zeit Online – Familien in der Coronakrise, 12.05.20; heute Xpress – Frauen in Coronazeiten, 18.05.20). Against a backdrop of the aforementioned considerations, the research project deals with the following questions:

• How do upcoming male and female managers see their future in terms of plans for their personal and working lives as well as desires, expectations and ideas?
• What are male and female personal and professional plans?
• How do men and women define professional success? Who are their role models and what makes these so special?
• How do they deal with, partly very confusing, social expectations?
• Where do men and women see challenges in the current working world?
• How do men feel in times of promoting women?

To examine the topic of gender and how diversity management is perceived by Generation Y, a survey of 350 women and men between the ages of 25 and 35 in Germany will be carried out.

A second phase will see data collection in other countries in Europe to take into account different cultural perspectives and to establish a possible continuation of this intention within the ERASMUS+ project. 400 male and female Polish junior staff will be asked.

In a third phase of this project, interviews with experts in Germany and Poland will help to establish solutions for the optimisation of decision-making processes and the designing of a supportive working environment (e.g. company culture, Human ResourceManagementsolutions). These should support women in attaining their professional goals without losing sight of the male perspective. The findings of the research project and the resulting measures will be available in the second half of the year 2022.