The right to work is essential for accessing other human rights and is inherent to a dignified life.330 It encompasses the right to be treated fairly at every point of the employment process, whether it is getting a job, fair pay, or promotion pathways.331 The right to work is set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Employment allows people the opportunity to earn a living and participate in society. At a minimum, the benefits gained from work should be enough to provide an adequate standard of living. A 2015 International Labour Organization (ILO) report on discrimination at work on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity found that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers face more discrimination throughout the employment cycle compared to the general population.332 This begins in education and continues through to job application, interview, job offer, and commencement of employment. A lack of employment rights and equal opportunities for advancement in a career negatively affects family life, including children’s lives. 333 Employment rates In New Zealand, no data on employed or unemployed people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, or sex characteristics is available from the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment.334 The unemployment rate of trans and non-binary participants in Counting Ourselves was more than twice the general population: 11% versus 5%. Wage discrimination Seminal work from Lee Badgett in the 1990s was the first to show a relationship between wage discrimination and sexual orientation.335 ILO’s Director-General has indicated that of all workers, trans people fare the worst in employment and ARTICLE 23 UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 18 on Article 6 of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights UN Doc E/C.12/GC/18 (6 February 2006). 331 New Zealand Human Rights Commission Tracking Equality at Work 2018: Summary and Recommendations (Wellington, 2018). 332 International Labour Organization Discrimination at work on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity: Results of the ILO’s PRIDE Project (Geneva, 2015); New Zealand Human Rights Commission To Be Who I Am: Report of the Inquiry into Discrimination Experienced by Transgender People (Wellington, 2008) at [4.49]. 333 International Labour Organization “Making workplace policies supportive of all families” (media statement, 17 May 2017). 334 K. Mottley, personal communication to T. Polkinghorne, December 11 2017. 335 M.V. Lee Badgett “The wage effects of sexual orientation discrimination” (1995) 48 Industrial and Labor Relations Review p726. 330 55