Subsistence crisis

A subsistence crisis occurs when individuals or communities are unable to obtain the necessities for survival due to factors such as inflation, drought, war, or economic instability, caused naturally or artificially. A subsistence crisis threatens the food supplies and the survival prospects of large numbers of people. When a subsistence crisis reaches an extreme resulting in large numbers of deaths, it is considered a famine. A subsistence crisis is genuine if it is visible in demographic data.

The concept of a subsistence crisis, in its contemporary form, was first formulated in France by John Meuvret in 1946 and popularized by Goubert in 1960 through his study of the Beauvaisis in Beauvais. As an economic historian and specialist in price history, Meuvret was struck by the coincidence between high prices and the increase in the number of deaths in the region of Gien in 1709–10. He posed the problem of the nature of demographic crises despite challenges to distinguish statistically between close phenomena, such as mortality through simple inanition (starvation); mortality caused by disease, though attributable to malnutrition; and mortality by contagion, which in turn was linked to the scarcity that helped both spawn and spread diseases.

Examples of subsistence crises

• France, 1788–1789, in which two years of crop failures and low yields caused a grain shortage
• The Year Without a Summer of 1816
• The Great Irish Famine, 1845 to 1849

See also

• Famine