Chris Bennett: Gender pay gap

There can be few professions or businesses which are as female friendly as optics, a fact demonstrated by domination of optometry intakes at university with women in recent years.

As the latest gender pay gap figures are published showing lower female pay should we feel sorry for the employers or is optics failing women?

The big employers all give similar reasons for their gender pay gap: for a whole range of reasons men do different jobs, and work in different ways than women, they say. It’s also a fact that the vast majority of non-professional, and lower paid, practice staff are women. The gender pay gap reflects that, not inequality in pay.