How The Inequalities Of Opportunities Affect The Distribution Of Basic Services In Households Receiving Remittances In Cameroon?

Abstract

This paper assess how the remittances of migrants affect the inequality of opportunity (IOP) of access to drinking water and food among in Cameroon. Adopting an ex-ante approach and using data from IFORD (2012) national survey, we find that between 2007-2012, the magnitude of IOP is higher in recipient households than in the not beneficiary households. In other words, remittances increase the IOP to basic services access; although it improves the access to each of these services. Moreover, the intertemporal decomposition of inequality of human opportunity shown that, improvement in access to drinking water and to food is due respectively to HOI scale and distribution effect. Finally, Shapley value decomposition shown a marginal contribution of the remittances to the dissimilarity index is between 6-13% and 13-19% respectively, with strong disparities in rural areas. This result is in agreement with the economic literature that indicates that positive effect of remittances on inequalities in origin countries when migrant comes from relatively wealthy households.