• the fact that most of those doing one job in a company are men and most of those doing another are women will not automatically make this unlawful sex discrimination - and there is nothing in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 to prevent an employer having a variety of retiring ages for different jobs provided that in the system which he uses there is no direct or indirect discrimination based on gender;

• in appropriate circumstances difficulty in recruiting and retaining a certain group of essential staff can justify setting a different retirement age for that group as compared to other groups and therefore even if this amounts to indirect sex discrimination it may not be unlawful.

For relevant general notes see Sex discrimination/retirement age and/or Sex discrimination/defence of justification .