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Female part-time pharmacists, who work less than 30 hours per week, earn more than their male counterparts, data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have shown.
Figures published on 3 November 2020 show that there is a negative gender pay gap of -6.8 between male and female part-time pharmacists, indicating that women who work part-time earn, on average, 6.8% more than men.
The median gender pay gap for all pharmacists in the UK, which includes full and part-time staff, is 6.7, meaning that men are paid 6.7% more than their female equivalents.
The ONS figure aligns closely to the The Pharmaceutical Journal’s own findings, which in September 2020 reported a gender pay gap of 6.3 based on its annual salary survey.
The ONS data for 2020 show a slight increase in the overall gender pay gap for pharmacists compared with 2019, when a pay gap of 4 was reported. However, a negative gender pay gap for part-time pharmacists was also reported by the ONS in 2019 (-5.9).
Amandeep Doll, Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) inclusion and diversity (I&D) co-ordinator, said that the results “show that gender pay gaps are a big issue that we all need to address. There is still much to be done in order to reduce any inequalities or bias in pharmacy pay, which will be considered within our I&D work.
“Over the past two years, the RPS has started publishing our own figures on gender pay gaps and we are committed to improving them.”
The gender pay gap for pharmacists was lower than the figure for healthcare professions as a whole, which — according to the ONS — stands at 14.6. Among all UK employees in the ONS data, the figure is 15.5.
The ONS data are taken from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, which is carried out in April of each year using a 1% sample of jobs taken from Pay As You Earn records. It does not include the self-employed.
