Die GDCh/VAA-Einkommensumfrage 2024 ist ausgewertet – wieder als Online-Broschüre. Wir bedanken uns bei unseren Mitgliedern für die hervorragende Teilnahmequote von knapp 21 %!
Would you like to participate in the upcoming income survey and receive the complete evaluation broken down by years of employment?
Then check your current master data via MyGDCh. Regular GDCh members whose master data contains employer information that is NOT subject to the public service pay scales will be contacted automatically at the beginning of the year.
Otherwise, please feel free to contact us after the call for participants in the February issue of the newsletter. We will then send you the questionnaire manually.
The survey is open from February 1st to April 15th of each year.
All full members who work outside the public sector are invited to participate. The questionnaire will be sent by post at the end of January to the mailing address on file with the GDCh.
members,
Those who have not received the questionnaire can contact the career service ( karriere@gdch.de ) stating their membership number . They will then receive their personal questionnaire.
The income survey is conducted jointly by the German Chemical Society (GDCh) and the Association of German Medical Societies (VAA). The large number of participants in a joint survey ensures that the data can be statistically analyzed. And unlike many other salary reports, the GDCh/VAA survey also considers years of professional experience, among other factors.
As always, each member receives their personal questionnaire with their individual participant number. This questionnaire may therefore only be completed by the member to whom it was sent. The evaluation will again be carried out by Professor Christian Grund from RWTH Aachen University University and his team. Along with the questionnaire, members will receive an envelope printed with their address. To maintain the anonymity of the survey, please detach the questionnaire from the sheet with your address. The envelope should also not contain a return address. Letters must be sufficiently stamped, otherwise the university mailroom will not accept them. The deadline for participation is April 15th.
The results should again be particularly interesting for many GDCh members who do not work in the large chemical industry but in smaller companies from a wide variety of areas outside the chemical industry. It has long been suspected that salaries there are lower than in the large chemical industry. However, concrete figures are only available since the GDCh took part in the survey previously carried out solely by the VAA, because the VAA members are mostly active in large companies in the chemical industry.
Due to the different membership structures of the GDCh and VAA, the results are also processed differently. The GDCh brochure shows not only income within the chemical industry, but also income outside of the chemical industry. These are not included in the VAA brochure because the VAA includes all members of the chemical industry. Conversely, the VAA publishes information about the salaries of its members in the commercial sector that is not in the GDCh brochure.
As in previous years, only those members who participated in the survey will receive the results. For this purpose, the GDCh will receive a list of the participant numbers of the participating members from Christian Grund.
The participant number is unique to each member and is at the top of the questionnaire. To protect the anonymity of the survey, separate the questionnaire from the sheet with your address. There should also be no sender on the envelope. Christian Grund and his team work with the participant numbers and the associated data, but cannot infer the membership number from the numbers and certainly not the people who belong to it, since they do not receive any personal data apart from the participant number.
The GDCh Career Services team knows the membership and participant number of their participating members, but not the associated salary data. You don't even see the completed questionnaires, because they are sent directly to the chair in Aachen by the participants.
The most important questions in the questionnaire are, of course, about salary. In addition, however, questions are also asked about a job change or a work-related stay abroad, as well as the number of subordinate employees and a company car. Other questions deal with the social situation of the participant, such as whether they live in a partnership or have dependent children. They are also asked about their general satisfaction with their job. The evaluation of all this information is intended to provide comprehensive information not only about income, but also generally about career paths and the social situation of the participants.
With the individual participant number, so-called longitudinal observations can also be carried out, in which the individual salary development of the participants is tracked over several years. This makes it possible to determine, for example, the influence of a stay abroad or a job change on the salary. Even participants who do not take part every year but at longer intervals can thus be included in the longitudinal analysis.
All GDCh members who are employed in industry or trade, i.e., not subject to the pay scales of the public service and who work in Germany.
Because the cost of living, income, and its tax treatment differ from country to country, income earned abroad is not comparable to income earned in Germany. We would therefore need to conduct a separate analysis for each country. However, to enable a detailed analysis by years of employment, a large number of data sets are required. Since our members living abroad are spread across many countries, there are too few members per country to create reliable analyses (see also question 19).
In 2015, a survey was conducted for the first time among members in Switzerland, jointly carried out by the VAA and the Swiss Chemical Society. Due to lower participation numbers, however, this survey is not conducted annually, but at longer intervals.
No. Our income survey is a service for our members, and only they are allowed to participate.
Members whose work address shows they are employed in industry will receive the questionnaire by mail at the end of January.
For many of our members, we only have their home address and therefore cannot see where they work. If you inform our member services of your work address or change it yourself in MyGDCh, you will be automatically included in the following year. (Of course, you can continue to have the newsletter sent to your home address even if you have provided a work address.) Members who work in industry and have not received the questionnaire can, of course, request it from the GDCh Career Service.
The identification or participant number is generated from the membership number. Therefore, all participants have their own personal participant number, which will not change in subsequent years.
Using the participant number, so-called longitudinal analyses can be carried out, in which the individual salary development of participants is tracked over several years. This makes it possible, for example, to determine the impact of a stay abroad or a job change on salary.
Yes, anonymity is guaranteed in every case. The identification number is assigned using an encryption technique derived from the membership number. At the Chair of Human Resources at RWTH Aachen University, where the evaluation is carried out, Professor Christian Grund and his team work with the participant numbers and the associated data. However, they cannot deduce the membership number from the numbers, and certainly not the identities of the individuals associated with them, as they receive no personal data other than the participant number. The German Chemical Society (GDCh), in turn, knows the membership and participant numbers of its participating members, but not the corresponding salary data. We do not see the completed questionnaires, as these are sent directly to the Chair in Aachen by the participants. An envelope with the address is enclosed with the questionnaire. To maintain anonymity, please do not include a return address on the envelope.
After the evaluation is complete, the GDCh will receive a list of participant numbers from the Aachen chair. From this, the membership numbers, and thus the participants, can be deduced. If your participant number is missing from the questionnaire, we have no proof that you participated in the survey and will not send you the survey results (see also question 14).
The questionnaires are normally accepted until April 15th. The deadlines are also stated on the questionnaires themselves and here online.
Letters with insufficient postage will not be accepted by the post office. Senders who do so will therefore not participate in the survey.
This is a joint survey by the GDCh and VAA. Therefore, the results are the same. However, there are differences in the publication of the data. The results of participants working outside the chemical industry are only published in the GDCh brochure.
As a rule, members with dual memberships receive the questionnaire via the VAA. If you receive a questionnaire from the GDCh, please participate through the GDCh. If you are interested in income outside the chemical industry, please participate through the GDCh, as these results are only presented in the GDCh brochure (see question 12). Please do not participate twice, as this will skew the results.
In the interest of those who took the time to complete the questionnaire, only members who participated in the survey will receive the brochure with the results. The GDCh will receive a list of participant numbers from RWTH Aachen University for this purpose (see also question 9). Experience shows that participation steadily declines when the results are made available to everyone.
Unfortunately, some members are unable to participate and therefore will not receive the results. We understand that some may feel this is unfair. However, since we cannot send the evaluation to all members (see question 14), the only truly fair solution would be to discontinue the income survey altogether.
For members who are unable to participate, we have created a significantly shortened version, which members can obtain upon request from the GDCh Career Service. For those starting their careers, information is available in the GDCh member area under "MyGDCh" at www.gdch.de under the headings "Special Offers for Members" and "Salaries for Female Chemists".
The brochure is expected to be finished in July/August and will then be sent to all participants.
Because we're a small department and we create it ourselves. Furthermore, we're busy with the annual statistics for the degree programs until mid-June and can only get to the income survey after that. But we strive to finish a little earlier each year. Promise!
A major advantage of the survey is its breakdown of income by years of service. After all, simply stating an average salary isn't very helpful if it lumps together the incomes of recent graduates and long-term employees. However, this requires a minimum of several hundred participants. If we were to further divide our participating members into different groups, we would have far too few data sets to conduct any meaningful statistical analysis. Therefore, our analysis focuses on separating participants from those within and outside the chemical industry (see also question 12).
Unfortunately, the number of participants from the new federal states is too low to carry out more detailed evaluations (see also question 19).
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last modified: 01.12.2025 15:29 H from Translator
