The similarity between the debates about the informal sector, and about women in development, lies in the fact that both deal with the problem of economic discrimination based on impeded access to productive assets and to incomes. Both, therefore, can agree on the need for asset redistribution and the imposition of constraints on the competitive labour market in the absence of permanent full employment. However, the women's debate, by introducing the additional problem of social oppression, raises a difficulty in that a competitive labour market is also a powerful weapon for combatting social discrimination. It is therefore necessary to consider the possibility that in combatting one form of oppression another may be strengthened.