Two days after a coalition of conservatives won Germany’s federal election last month, the governor of Bavaria took to Instagram to say the parties were “ready for political change” and posted a group picture of the likely future chancellor, Friedrich Merz, with five other leaders.
But the photo seemed to suggest that a changed Germany will look remarkably like the country of old: It shows six white middle-aged white men sitting around a table of snacks. The only apparent concession to modern sensibilities was that half of the men are not wearing neckties.
Three-and-a-half years after Angela Merkel, the only woman to serve as chancellor, retired, German national politics seem to be backsliding when it comes to gender parity. The new German Parliament, which met for the first time on Tuesday, has always been more male and less diverse than the population it represents, but the new one will be even more male and — compared with the society as a whole — less diverse than the one before it.
Only 32 percent of the 630 new lawmakers are women, a drop from 35 percent when the last Parliament was formed in 2021.
In a country where society has appeared at times reluctant to turn away from traditional gender roles, the number of women in the highest elected body has been stagnating since 2013, when it hit a high of 36 percent. The president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, pointed to this statistic during a speech at a recent Women’s Day celebration.
“When our democracy has a problem with women, then our country has a problem with democracy,” Mr. Steinmeier said. He noted that even if every elected woman from all of the country’s parties voted together as a bloc, they would not reach the one-third minority needed to block changes to the Constitution.
