The class of lawmakers taking office is noticeably more male and less diverse than the constituents it will represent.
Two days after a coalition of conservatives won Germany’s federal election last month, the governor of Bavaria took to Instagram to say the party was “ready for political change” and posted a group picture of the likely future chancellor, Friedrich Merz, with five other leaders.
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 them are not wearing neckties.
Three-and-a-half years after the only woman to serve as chancellor retired, German national politics seems to be backsliding when it comes to diversity and gender parity. While in the United States the new administration has been actively scuttling D.E.I. programs, in Germany the change appears to be less deliberate. But it is no less striking.
The German Parliament has always been more male and less diverse than the population it represents, and the new one that will be sworn in on Tuesday will be 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 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. In a speech, 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.
