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This is the executive summary for the report, "The Unequal Race for Good Jobs: How Whites Made Outsized Gains in Education and Good Jobs Compared to Blacks and Latinos." Between 1991 and 2016, White workers built on their past educational and economic privileges to attain bachelor's and graduate degrees in historically high numbers and consequently gained access to good jobs that demanded higher levels of education. As a group, White workers with bachelor's degrees and graduate degrees gained 10.6 million good jobs even as overall employment growth for White workers was modest: 1.9 million jobs. With the constantly growing demand for workers with postsecondary education and the disproportionate advantage that Whites have accrued in educational attainment. Black and Latino workers also sought and attained higher levels of education as a pathway to greater opportunity, but their gains have been far short of those of Whites. Black workers gained 1.9 million good jobs for workers with at least a bachelor's degree, while their employment increased by 4 million jobs overall; Latino workers gained 2.2 million good jobs for workers with at least a bachelor's degree even as their employment increased substantially, by 13.1 million jobs overall. [For the full report, see ED600048.]

Between 1991 and 2016, employment among White, Black, and Latino workers grew by 20 percent, while employment in good jobs soared by 35 percent. Yet the opportunities and benefits of the modern economy have not accrued evenly across the three groups. Discrimination and a history of racial injustice in this country have led to Whites gaining a disproportionate edge in educational opportunity and good jobs. During this period, Whites started out with more good jobs than Blacks and Latinos, and they gained an outsized share of the new good jobs compared to Blacks and Latinos. White workers are the only major racial or ethnic group for whom the majority of their jobs are good jobs. Overall, Whites have a disproportionate share of good jobs relative to their share of employment, and Blacks and Latinos are disproportionately underrepresented in good jobs relative to their share of employment. In 2016, White workers held 77 percent of the good jobs in the United States even though Whites collectively held 69 percent of all jobs. Black workers held 10 percent of good jobs even as Blacks held 13 percent of all jobs. Latino workers held 13 percent of good jobs, while Latinos held 18 percent of all jobs. [For the executive summary, see ED600049.]

The gender wage gap, the disparity in pay between men and women, has narrowed to 81 cents in 2016 from 57 cents on the dollar in 1975. Nevertheless, the gap persists. Over the course of a career, the gender wage gap results in women earning $1 million less than men do. To close this gap, women have relied primarily on the advantages conferred by education. Today, women are enrolling in college in greater numbers than men, breaking through barriers to pursue degrees in male-dominated majors that offer higher earnings, as well as graduating in greater numbers at all levels of education. In the 1970s, the number of associate's degrees awarded to women began outnumbering those awarded to men. In the 1980s, the number of bachelor's degrees and master's degrees awarded to women overtook the number awarded to men. By the 2000s, more women completed doctoral degrees than men. The report explores the complex set of reasons that have kept the gender wage gap in place. Even when comparing men and women who have equal educational attainment and work in the same occupation, women still earn only 92 cents for every dollar earned by men. [For the executive summary, see ED594548.]

This is the executive summary for the report, "Women Can't Win: Despite Making Educational Gains and Pursuing High-Wage Majors, Women Still Earn Less than Men." Gender wage disparities have always been an intractable problem in the workforce. Women are doing all the right things to close wage disparities--going to college in greater numbers than men, pursuing majors that offer higher incomes, and graduating college in greater numbers than men. A complex set of reasons has kept this gender wage disparity in place: (1) choice of field of study; (2) choice of majors within fields of study; (3) choice of occupation; and (4) discrimination. [For the full report, see ED594545.]

In the post-World War II period, workers with a high school diploma or less were able to attain jobs with middle-class wages in American industry. Good jobs were available in manufacturing and other blue-collar industries that employed large numbers of high school-educated workers. But as automation, globalization, and related phenomena have led to major structural changes in the American economy, economic opportunity has shifted toward more educated workers with higher skill levels. Whereas two out of three entry-level jobs in the industrial economy demanded a high school diploma or less, now two out of three jobs demand at least some education or training beyond high school. In this report, the authors write about the three pathways to good jobs, each defined by education and skills: the high school pathway, the middle-skills pathway, and the bachelor's degree (BA) pathway.