High unemployment in many developing countries is intensifying job competition and raising concern for the employment prospects of vulnerable groups, including children of rural parents. This paper examines the trends and sources in employment disadvantage associated with rural parentage in Cameroon. In documenting the sources of inequality, the study moves beyond a "consensus versus conflict" dichotomy, and instead uses regression decomposition to estimate the relative contributions of both perspectives. It also uses fixed-effects methods to examine the importance of unobserved family influences that have been understudied in previous research. In documenting historical change in rural disadvantage, the study distinguishes between long-term trends and shorter-term economic fluctuations. Findings show that although rural parentage does not create a disadvantage in off-farm employment as a whole, it does so within the formal sector. This disadvantage is predominantly due to rural-urban differences in returns to schooling rather than levels of schooling. Disadvantage in schooling has been declining over time but, interestingly, these gains may stall during prosperous times, as these tend to inordinately benefit urban children. (Contains 1 figure, 5 tables and 11 footnotes.)