Most of the poor in our region are women and children. Because women are poor and so many are household heads, in some countries more than 50 percent of children are growing up poor. This is not primarily a problem of education. With the worrisome exception of women in the indigenous communities of Latin America, where female illiteracy still exceeds male illiteracy, women in our region now have virtually equal access to basic education. It is a problem of equal access to jobs and credit, and equal pay for equal work.
Women are more likely to be unemployed than men in Latin America.
They are systematically less likely to have the contacts, the collateral and in some countries, the legal standing, to get access to commercial bank credits. When employed they earn just 75 percent of what men earn. Ironically, even as women are the principal victims of poverty, they are also the great multipliers of prosperity. We know from careful research that women spend more of their personal income on their children than men, and that a mother's education has a more powerful influence on children's education than a father's. Improving women's access to jobs, to credit and to equal pay is not only just and fair, a legitimate objective of development in itself.