We calculate the intensity of the polariton-mediated inelastic light scattering in semiconductor microcavities. We treat the exciton-photon coupling nonperturbatively and incorporate lifetime effects in both excitons and photons, and a coupling of the photons to the electron-hole continuum. Taking the matrix elements as fitting parameters, the results are in excellent agreement with measured Raman intensities due to optical phonons that are resonant with the upper polariton branches in II-VI microcavities with embedded CdTe quantum wells. © IOP Publishing Ltd.