We investigate whether white women, black women, and black men earn less than white men because of 1) lower educational attainment and/or 2) lower wage returns to the same levels and academic fields of attainment. Using the 1979–2012 waves of the American National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we examine how educational attainment and academic fields of study impact pay. Regression decompositions show that differences in attainment and in academic fields explain 13 to 23 percent of the racial pay gaps, but none of the gender pay gaps. Random effects models test for race and gender differences in the wage returns to education. Men of both races receive higher wage returns relative to women, while black women receive lower returns relative to all groups for master's degrees. Our intersectional approach reveals that equalizing educational attainment would reduce racial pay gaps, whereas equalizing wage returns to education would reduce gender pay disparities. Moreover, black women's earnings are multiply disadvantaged, both by their lower attainment relative to white women, and their lower returns to education relative to all groups studied.

我们调查白人女性、黑人女性和黑人男性的收入是否低于白人男性，因为 1) 教育程度较低和/或 2) 相同水平和学术领域的工资回报较低。我们利用 1979 年至 2012 年美国全国青年纵向调查 (NLSY79) 的数据，研究教育程度和学术研究领域如何影响薪酬。回归分解表明，成就和学术领域的差异可以解释 13% 至 23% 的种族薪酬差距，但不能解释性别薪酬差距。随机效应模型测试了教育工资回报中的种族和性别差异。两个种族的男性相对于女性获得更高的工资回报，而黑人女性相对于所有群体的硕士学位获得较低的回报。我们的交叉方法表明，教育程度平等将缩小种族薪酬差距，而教育工资回报平等将缩小性别薪酬差距。此外，黑人女性的收入处于多重不利地位，因为她们相对于白人女性的教育成就较低，而且相对于所有研究群体而言，她们的教育回报也较低。