4. Understanding pay gaps He waka eke noa – We are all in this together. Māori Proverb Before we set out what we heard in our engagements, we outline what pay gaps are – first starting with the gender pay gap then moving on to ethnic pay gaps – before considering what the combined ethnic and gender pay reveals and what the cumulative impact of the pay gap is over time. We then discuss some limitations when accounting for the explained and unexplained portions of the pay gaps. There is a discussion of the migrant pay gap and those for disabled workers and rainbow workers in the accompanying literature review. As discrimination is a significant factor in explaining the Pacific Pay Gap, we conclude this section by briefly outlining what we know about ethnic and racial discrimination in the workplace. Voices of Pacific peoples 29