Poverty is the main indicator of inequality and the gravest danger to the environment. Its eradication is the first of the Sustainable Development Objectives (SDO) established by the United Nations in 2015 for the year 2030. This is because poverty limits access to the resources necessary for avoiding an early death and for being in good health –physical, mental and emotional- in dignified and equal conditions.

On a global level, poverty was reduced by almost a half over the last 20 years, but with large differences between populations and with a risk of reverting to previous levels. Of the 18% of the world’s population who still live in absolute poverty, the majority are concentrated in Africa and Asia, and it particularly affects women and children in all the world, even in the richest countries.

The contribution of women to the family economy has been a constant thanks to productive work which is rarely paid. This situation continued among rural and urban women in the developed world until the middle of the 20tion h century, and continues today in many populations in the developing world. Their access to the world of work, with paid jobs, increases with urbanisation, but with important gaps in terms of parity in type of job and pay, even in the richest