This study attempts to carry out a comprehensive analysis of poverty, inequality and
polarization trends using Cameroon household surveys collected before and during
the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) process. The theoretical decomposition
frameworks propelling the study are motivated mainly by the Shapley value. Empirical
estimates are obtained from the software DAD 4.4 using both money-metric and
child nutrition indicators, and poverty lines, with the monetary threshold derived nonparametrically.
Effects within-zones account for much of monetary poverty changes than
effects between-zones. The findings that inter-zone effects contribute to alleviating rural
poverty while aggravating urban poverty, suggests the potential for rural–urban migration
to alleviate rural poverty. Changes in money-metric poverty and health deprivation
sharply contrast each other. While health poverty deteriorated, income poverty retreated.
This is an indication that economic growth may not necessarily engender significant
reduction in all dimensions of well-being. Changes in health poverty are driven largely
by effects of redistribution, whereas for income poverty the growth component seems
to be more important. Both income and non-income dimensions highlight the dominant
role of within-group components in accounting for inequality trends. However, while the
between-group contributions to inequality are negligible in the health dimension, they
are non-negligible in the income space. In terms of levels, polarization and inequality
are more of an urban than a rural problem, yet inequality and polarization worsened
only in rural areas in the period 1996–2001. As a whole, polarization indices do not
give dissimilar trends from standard measures of inequality. The conflicting results
from income and health well-being indicators are attributable to the observation that the
economic rebound in Cameroon was preceded by fiscal austerity measures embedded
in the Structural Adjustment Programmes that engendered a decline in the availability
of public goods. Moreover, health indicators are slow-moving compared with income
or expenditure, which does not include the quality of service received from social
expenditures on health and nutrition. These results have implications for policy making:
in terms of income deprivation, emphasis could be on growth-based labour-intensive
policies that create opportunities for the rural poor to increase their incomes; and in
terms of child health and perhaps general health, emphasis could be on redistribution
of health infrastructure and personnel to increase outreach.