This is particularly evident when it comes to the gender-wage gap. There are a couple commonly-offered explanations for why women of color make less than men: Some say it’s the unfortunate result of the fact that women of color tend to go into different, lower-paying careers, or the fact that many of them temporarily pause their careers to care for their children. However, studies looking at specific occupations show that even when controlling for professional experience, area of specialty, and educational background, disparities still persist.

In fact, sociologists have shown how racial and gender discrimination play important roles in creating and reinforcing this particular wage gap. Using data from the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, the sociologist Vincent Roscigno points out that office rules are applied more harshly to women of color than to others, and that some predominantly white workplaces have racially inhospitable environments that serve to push women of color out. This effect is even more pronounced in majority-male occupations. The sociologists Ella L. J. Bell Smith and Stella Nkomo also document how black women working in male-dominated executive ranks encounter both racial and gender stereotypes as well as disparities in mentorship that limit their career trajectories.

Additionally, as the sociologist Jake Rosenfeld has shown, the decline in unionization has worsened the racial wage gap, particularly for black women working in the private sector. Rosenfeld’s work indicated that black women were joining the workforce in large numbers—at last gaining access to the benefits of unions—right around the time that organized labor began to decline in influence, scope, and power. This left collective bargaining largely unavailable to them, worsening wage gaps that still exist today.

The point is that the gender-wage gap is not just a story of women making less money than men; it is indicative of how race also shapes earnings disparities, such that women of color often find themselves financially in even worse shape than their white female colleagues.

Importantly, these racial disparities exist on both sides of the gender-pay gap. While researchers and policymakers are more likely today to draw attention to how women of color are differentially affected by these gaps in pay, men of color, as the intersectional approach would suggest, are facing earnings gaps unique to them. When it comes to hourly wages, white men earn an average of $21 an hour, compared to $15 an hour for black men and $14 an hour for Latino men. (White and Asian women actually earn more per hour, on average—$17 an hour and $18 an hour, respectively—than black and Latino men.) Further, a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, showed that in 2015, after controlling for education, region, and work experience, black men earned 22 percent less than white men working in the same occupations, a disparity that has worsened in the aftermath of the Great Recession.