Mapping Out Non-monetary Dimensions of Well-Being by Ethnicity in Rural Cameroon

Abstract

While monetary poverty in urban Cameroon has been declining since 2001, rural poverty has instead been on the rise. This persistence of monetary poverty in rural areas is observable in many other Sub-Saharan African countries, and to better inform public policy it is important to investigate non-monetary dimensions of poverty using more recent methods. Moreover, since urban settings are becoming more cosmopolitan, cultural and ethnic specificities are more perceptible in rural areas. In this context, this paper focuses on non-monetary dimensions of well-being by comparing physical, human, and financial/productive asset endowments by ethnic groups in rural Cameroon over the period 2001–2007. Since Cameroon is considered Africa in miniature in terms of historical, geographical, cultural and ethnic diversity, we configure rural Cameroon into four main ethnic groups: the Savanna-Peulhs; the Forest-Bantus; the Coastal-Bantus and the Highland-Bantus. Using the 2001 and 2007 Cameroon household consumption surveys, the polychoric principal component analysis and stochastic dominance testing, we construct and compare indicators of these asset endowments along ethnic groups. Results show that: (1) for all asset endowments, the Savanna-Peulhs ethnic group appeared to be the least endowed—this finding could be epitomizing the experiences of many semi-arid rural areas in Africa; (2) the Coastal-Bantus ethnic group was the most endowed in terms of physical and human assets—this observation is likely to be similar to the situation in many coastal settings in rural Africa; (3) the Highland-Bantus ethnic group registers the highest financial/productive asset endowments; and (4) the Forest-Bantus and Savanna-Peulhs ethnic groups achieved notable improvements in human assets over the period 2001–2007. Meanwhile, among all ethnic groups, physical and financial/productive assets contracted between 2001 and 2007. These results indicate that incorporating ethnic specificities can help to better understand non-monetary poverty comparisons in rural Cameroon and beyond. Our findings have public policy implications for multiple dimensions of poverty measurement beyond Cameroon in that those living in semi-arid settings are more likely to suffer multi-asset deprivation than others, and settlements away from coastal areas towards the hinterlands are likely to face more deprivation in key asset endowments.