Women in the Cotswolds will effectively work three weeks for free this year, figures revealing the area's gender pay gap show.
Figures from the Office of National Statistics show women working in the Cotswolds earned an average hourly salary of £10.53 as of April – 6 per cent less than men, who earned £11.22.
Over the course of the working year, this means, in effect, women in the Cotswolds will work without pay from December 10 in 2020.
Female workers in the Cotswolds also earn below the median average hourly rate of £12.50 for women across the UK.
The equivalent for UK men is £14.79, meaning they earn 15.5 per cent more every hour – down from 17.4 per cent in 2019.
Hourly figures are used to remove the effect of overtime, while the median is used, to stop them being skewed by particularly small or large wages.
When hours worked are taken into account, the mean average full-time salary for UK women is £33,259, compared to £42,231 for men.
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