Subsistence crisis

A subsistence crisis affects individuals or communities unable to obtain basic necessities due to either man-made or natural factors such as inflation, drought or war. Severe subsistence crises are considered famines. While John Meuvret first coined the term in France in 1946, economic historian Pierre Goubert popularized the concept during the 1960s with his study of economic inequality and mortality in Beauvais 1709–10.