Experiences of intersectional discrimination Pacific workers do not only experience discrimination on the basis of their ethnicity. Participants told us of the double or multiple discrimination they faced based on other intersecting aspects of their identity, including gender, disability, gender identity and sexual orientation. In this section, we focus on the themes of: • discrimination due to gender and ethnicity • discrimination due to ethnicity and sexual orientation or gender identity • discrimination due to ethnicity and disability. Discrimination due to gender and ethnicity In the manufacturing sector, a limited number of Pacific workers, mainly male, shared that they had been promoted into a leadership role. The remaining participants, who identified as female, told us that they had never been promoted. One woman said there is “never an opportunity to be promoted – they expect you to be happy with what you get” (S016). Another woman said that she had only been promoted after decades of service – “took 40 years before I become a Lab Manager” (S008). Another woman had a different experience of being promoted in name only – “in my old job, I was promoted to a new position and I thought I would get a pay increase and a new contract but didn’t – also still had to go back and forth multitasking” (S032). Similarly, in the construction sector, a small number of participants shared negative experiences with promotions based on both their gender and ethnicity. In comparison, the health sector had a small number of Pacific workers, mostly female, who shared that they had positive experiences with promotion. A significant number of these participants held postgraduate degrees. However, this does not explain their positive experiences because, equally, a large number of female participants who never got promoted held the same level of qualification. Discrimination due to ethnicity and sexual orientation or gender identity In this section, we explore what rainbow community members shared with the Inquiry about pay disparity as well as solutions for change and closing the Pacific Pay Gap. We heard both negative and positive experiences on the employment journey. The 76 engagement with the rainbow community involved talanoa set up with members of a rainbow group working in the education sector and identifying rainbow members in general talanoa. Within the university sector, rainbow participants felt that barriers and discrimination to progression existed. While discrimination was not always explicit, rainbow participants felt the need to downplay their sexuality. One person said: Being gay at the university you do have to downplay … in HR, it’s a bit more accepted … it’s something that you kind of downplay to keep … in terms of your reputation so it doesn’t affect your work so much. (T022) This barrier was further complicated by hierarchies within the rainbow community, which one Pacific worker described in the following way: Even within the rainbow community, there is a hierarchy. At the top, you have gay white men, and then gay white women, lesbian, then you have person of colour, person of colour male and then you have woman, and then, unfortunately, our transgender are right at the bottom, which is sad. That even within our own communities, people don’t say this, but this is how it works, right? It shouldn’t but it does. (T044) There was a general consensus that, within the rainbow community, transgender people face the most barriers in employment. One Pacific worker shared their views on this: And unfortunately the people who bear the brunch of this are the trans and our māhū sisters and brothers who find it hard to get those opportunities. (T044) Regarding promotion, one Pacific worker who identified as gay shared his experience of successfully being promoted during his employment: