Tag Archives: research studies

Surveys Show A Trend Toward The Least Expensive Cremation Choices

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Cremation’s progress in the U.S. is still in a state of flux. There are differing opinions around the funeral industry about what will happen next, and how the rate of change is changing. Has the cremation trend slowed down or is it speeding up? Are people who buy funerals planning to spend less or more?

Statistics on cremation and its effects on funeral practices are not plentiful but, as we’ve seen over the past dozen or so posts, there is data out there. Some of the questions I would like to see answered are often not addressed systematically, so in order to find out the prevalence of simple (or “direct”) cremation, for example, or what consumers are thinking about traditional funeral ceremonies, information must be cobbled together from various sources. Through that process, the best I think we get is a partial picture.

But I plan to continue work on completing the picture as I find more data to review. In the meantime, here are some final pieces from research by industry consultants and suppliers over the past eight years.

Johnson Consulting Group “Trends & Insights” report

One of the foremost funeral consulting companies reviewed over 235,000 sales records and over 70,000 customer satisfaction surveys from their client firms covering a recent two-year span. The study’s main focus is on information for funeral business owners, including topics related to revenues and profitability that aren’t relevant (at the moment) to this blog—but there are a couple of relevant pieces of information.

From 2014-2016, the study found a trend that matches what we’ve seen in other surveys, of an ever-faster increase in cremation adoption.

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NFDA Reports On Cremation, Ceremonies, And Disposition

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An important source of data regarding American funeral practices is the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), the oldest and largest of the funeral industry trade associations. The NFDA publishes a periodic report on cremation and burials, drawn from government vital statistics records and surveys of funeral homes, crematories, and consumers.

While the report focuses on information for funeral home managers to serve customers and plan for the future, it also gives another piece of the broader picture of what Americans are doing when they have to make funeral arrangements.

Disposition of Ashes After Cremation

NFDA studies, what was done with cremated remains (percentage of cases)1
2017 2015
Returned To Family 39.0 38.0
Scattered At Non- Cemetery Location 19.8 20.2
Buried Or Scattered At Cemetery 38.7 37.9
Placed In Columbarium Niche 8.6 7.4

Tracking with what we’ve heard from the CANA experts, a solid majority of about 60 percent of cremation customers are bypassing the cemetery—at the beginning of the process, at least—and taking the ashes home with them, either to scatter or keep.

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New Cremation Trends Include Taking The Ashes Home

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The key changes that cremation has caused in American funerals, as I explained last week, affect the two main segments of the funeral industry. First, ceremonies can be curtailed and no longer need to be held under the supervision of a funeral director, and second, the body no longer has to go to a cemetery.

These funeral home and cemetery effects are not directly related. The ashes can be interred at a cemetery whether or not there was a ceremony, and you can hold rituals regardless of burial plans. Only limited data exist to tell us what consumers are actually doing, because academic researchers do not conduct many studies of funeral purchases (and none recently), and the funeral industry tends to report only partial data—fragments rather than the whole picture. Through the studies already reviewed and some more to come, I will try to create an accurate picture of the overall impact of cremation.

Continuing, then, to build this data puzzle, we turn again to the Cremation Association of North America (CANA) for a few more pieces.

CANA, as noted previously, provides complete data on annual cremations performed in North America based on official vital statistics reports.

Although consumer research does not appear to be a CANA priority in recent years, back in the 1990s they did conduct one study that gives a useful benchmark for where things stood before the recent decades of accelerating change.

The CANA Special Report: 1996/97 Cremation Container, Disposition and Service Survey reported on a survey of 241 crematories which asked the crematory operators to provide details of 50 consecutive cremations. They were also asked the total number of cremations they performed during the previous year, which was used to create a weighted value proportionate to the 492,434 cremation performed in the U.S. in 1996. Results had a 90 percent confidence level of being within a deviation of about 5 percent.1

Following are results of the 1997 CANA survey:2

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1990-2015: FAMIC Survey On Preferences For Cremation And Funeral Services

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Study Of American Attitudes Toward Ritualization And Memorialization was begun in 1989 as a joint project of numerous funeral/cemetery industry organizations under the umbrella of the Funeral and Memorial Information Council (FAMIC). The first survey was conducted in 1990 by Wirthlin Worldwide and results were published in 1991, with followups by Wirthlin and then Harris Interactive about every 4-5 years since. The study’s purpose has been to gauge consumer attitudes about the industry as a whole, about the people who work in the industry, and about “ritualization and memorialization” services and products.1 In the early years of the survey, I believe showing changes in consumer attitudes was a primary emphasis of the reports. Recently, however, as I explained in the previous post, in recent FAMIC reports, historical data are not included for certain questions and information on related trends has thus vanished.

But by pulling data from several FAMIC reports we can still find useful information on how consumer opinions about funeral practices have changed as cremation becomes more prevalent.

Subjects: US adults in geographic, gender, and ethnic proportions intended to represent the general population. 1990: 1000 (635 age 40+); 1995: 1001 (584 age 40+); 1999: 1002 (615 age 40+); 2004: 961 (961 age 40+); 2010: 858 (507 age 40+); 2015: 1543 (1238 age 40+). Oversampling of several ethnic groups was conducted to collect data on certain questions. For sets of questions that qualified the respondent, such as “Were you involved in selecting a provider?” the number of valid responses to subsequent items may have been fewer than the total participants because only those who said “yes” to the first would have been asked. The method of the survey changed in 2015 when it was brought online; in previous years subjects were interviewed by telephone.2

Main findings

Between 1990 and 2015, as measured in the FAMIC studies, consumer sentiment regarding cremation has changed 180 degrees from negative to positive—from 61 precent unfavorable to 65 percent favorable.

Evidence for the reversal is most telling in the reasons people now give for choosing cremation: whereas in 1990 there were a couple of main rationales centered on the financial and land-saving advantages of cremation, now there are many. This indicates a tradition so familiar that consumers now see many advantages in it.

Respondents continue to feel very favorably about the people working in the funeral business, and most say they would not want to change anything about the funeral experience. However, perceptions of the value of funeral ceremonies have declined somewhat.

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FAMIC Data On Consumer Preferences

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Why do people choose cremation? If you have to make funeral arrangements, you might wonder what the differences are between various options, and also what most other people are thinking when they select one over the other. If you are in the funeral business, you’re probably also interested in these questions.

They don’t have simple answers, because they lead to many other questions—which I allude to in describing the scope of this project. I may well expend another 100,000 words digging into the differences between all the funeral choices.

As to questions such as what consumers think and whether they are happy with their choices, we need to pull together disparate research because there are no comprehensive consumer opinion data studies, unfortunately.

About every five years since 1989, the funeral industry has hired a public opinion research firm to survey consumer attitudes. In the 1990s the research partner was Wirthlin Worldwide, but since Wirthlin was purchased by Harris Interactive about 15 years ago the latter (I believe) has been the survey partner ever since. While this would seem to be a great opportunity to understand their customers, as we saw with the 1986 study (and, maybe, the 1996 study), sometimes the industry seems averse to certain research topics.

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2011: Cremation Ash Disposition Without Tradition

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What Now? Cremation Without Tradition examined the experiences of people who planned, and conducted or participated in, ceremonies for someone who was cremated, with special focus on what they did with the ashes and how the experiences benefited the participants. The cases reflected the current trend in which the former authorities—funeral directors or clergy—have diminished roles or no roles at all. “How to create a ceremony from scratch” may become a widespread matter of interest for homegrown funeral planners in the next decade. Customers may still choose traditional ceremonies and burial of the remains. But more often they are going in a different direction. People who created ad hoc rituals for ash disposition can teach us something about different options for ceremonial treatment of ashes, and also about what makes “ritual,” in the generic sense of the word, work.1

Subjects: 56 adults, ages 20 to 85, average age = 44.3, “who were actively involved in cremation and ash disposition decisions.” 40 were females and 16 males. They described a total of 87 cremation ritual events—78 humans and 9 dogs. Most were current or former residents of California.

Main findings

Over 80% of the respondents said the personalized rituals they created were positive experiences, even when things did not go smoothly.

The act of ritualization came naturally to participants who had begun with no idea of what to do, and even though “Americans were quite aware that they were making things up,” the ceremonies were perceived as meaningful.

About 21% of the cases were buried at a cemetery, or were going to be buried, in whole or in part. Most of these were spouses interred to join a spouse who had already died.

Most subjects believed that scattering was what they were supposed to do with the ashes. Those who did not scatter, without prompting, explained why they had not done so.

Study detail

When someone dies, there are now many options for how to dispose of a loved one’s body, what kind of ceremonies to have, what kind of permanent memorial to have, or whether to have anything at all. Some people will their bodies to “science” and that is the end of it. Some bodies are cremated but no one ever picks up the ashes. For some, there is a funeral with embalming and viewing, and the body is interred at a cemetery after the cremation. In most cases, the only real requirement is that the body be removed from the space of the living, for which there are a limited number of allowed choices, and beyond that anything goes.

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1996: Final Arrangements For Cremation In A Rural Population

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A Replication Of Dawson’s Study On Differences In Final Arrangements For Cremation Using A Rural Population Vs An Urban Population was a 1996 Master’s thesis project by a student at the University of Nebraska. The student author’s plan was to follow the framework of the Differences in Final Arrangements study conducted by Dawson, Santos, and Burdick in 1986 and published in 1990 (hereafter “Dawson”). Dawson had surveyed subjects in metropolitan areas, so to expand the project the author intended to use a similar survey among the rural population in various parts of Nebraska to better understand the choices and influences on customers selecting cremation.1

Subjects: Respondents for 28 deceased individuals who were cremated. Average age of deceased 74.5 years. (Author gives data on deceased but not on respondents). Most cases were in rural Nebraska but several were from other areas.

Main findings

Funeral services for these cremation cases were very similar to services for whole-body burial cases:

71% had a ceremony at a church or funeral home, 79% had a graveside service, 86% of the cremated remains were buried, and 79% had a monument or marker at the grave.

Almost the sole influence on the decision to cremate was the preference of the deceased.

Study detail

The key differences between this study and the work by Dawson and colleagues are the small number of subjects and the inclusion of only cremation cases.

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1986: Differences Between Burial And Cremation Arrangements

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Differences In Final Arrangements Between Burial And Cremation As The Method Of Body Disposition examined the funeral and burial arrangements selected by a national sample of customers who chose cremation as the form of bodily disposition, compared to choices made by customers selecting whole-body burial. The project produced interesting results, and is notable for focusing on funeral purchases, which is a rarely-studied topic, as well as for its target audience. Working under the sponsorship of the funeral industry, the researchers were able to collect data from funeral home and crematory customers who were next of kin or very close survivors, whose ages were typical of such customers—which is not often possible for research into funeral practices.1

Subjects: 703 adults who were either next of kin or the closest survivor of people whose arrangements were handled by funeral homes and crematoriums in the cities listed here within the previous 10 to 30 months. Respondents were: 496 females, average age 58.7 years; 207 males, average age 60 years. 470 were bereaved of people who were cremated, and 233 of people buried. Subjects were in six metropolitan areas: Phoenix, Arizona; San Diego, California; Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; and Seattle, Washington.

Main findings

Nearly 40% of cremation cases were accompanied by no ceremony at all (19.8%), or a memorial service at a later date (18.7%).

Only 36.4% of cremation dispositions were followed by a social gathering, versus 62.7% of whole-body burials.

Over 57% of cremated remains were either buried (40.4%) or placed in a niche (16.8%).

Neither saving money, nor saving land, nor convenience were cited more as reasons for making the choice of cremation than for the choice for whole-body burial.

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2011: Funeral Participation And Satisfaction

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The Good Funeral: Toward An Understanding Of Funeral Participation And Satisfaction examined the question of what makes funerals meaningful for attendees. Previous research had shown that people can come away from funerals with very different impressions. Some attendees give positive appraisals, some negative. Studies have suggested that some people only get short-term benefits from the rituals, and some find little benefit because their grieving has barely begun. There may be problems, such as the interpersonal issues highlighted in the adverse events study. But many say the rituals were meaningful for them. Key variables identified in several studies—which also make intuitive sense—are the attendees’ roles and levels of involvement, with more involvement leading to higher satisfaction. This study analyzed the relationship between roles and degrees of involvement, as well as other aspects of the funeral, to see which were associated with meaningful experiences.1

Subjects: 1,210 adults who “had ever attended a funeral”; volunteers comprised of undergraduate students and their adult relatives, average age 30.41. Respondents from 23 states with 96% from California.

Main findings

This study provided strong support for the idea that funerals are important because they allow people to express emotions and be supported by others at a difficult time.

Respondents had relatively high satisfaction with the funerals they’ve experienced.

The most important factor in whether a funeral was viewed as meaningful was whether the attendee participated by sharing and communicating emotions with other people.

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2006-2007: Funeral Attitudes And Coping With The Funeral

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In the early 2000s, Hayslip, Guarnaccia, and colleagues conducted an extensive survey of several hundred bereaved adults, collected a large amount of data, and ran numerous analyses on the data in order to publish two reports in the Omega journal. The relevant conclusions, for my purposes, overlap and are modest in number. Therefore, since they are based on the same data pool, I am going to combine the two reports into a single, longer review.

Proximal And Distal Antecedents Of Funeral Attitudes: A Multidimensional Analysis attempted to learn whether close/direct or distant/indirect factors are more likely to affect how people think about funerals. Close, or “proximal,” influences include emotional reactions to and personal feelings about death, and involvement in funeral-related activities. Distant, or “distal,” factors would include things like socioeconomic background, age, general health, and personality characteristics. Portions of the data were also used to determine the “pragmatic” versus “emotional” reasons behind opinions about funerals.1

Assessing Adults’ Difficulty In Coping With Funerals took a different perspective on the data from the same surveys, in order to explore characteristics of people who report positive or negative experiences from different aspects of funeral participation. The survey questionnaire, described in more detail below, was composed of many questions from many separate tools inquiring about personality, health, experiences, and opinions. One of the tools asked about participation in all of the different elements of funeral and burial rituals—before, during, and after the main ceremonies—and how difficult it was to cope with each element. Results from this set of questions were analyzed as to how they varied according to other factors in the data collection.2

Subjects: 348 adult volunteers “who had experienced the death and funeral of a close family member or close friend within the past two years” (90% within the previous year, average length of time since death = 11.83 months). Recruiting of volunteers took place through various support organizations such as bereavement groups, churches, and hospices, as well as through university classes and newspaper ads. Age range was from 18 to 88, with average age = 34.21.

Main findings

The subjects’ opinions on funerals appear to have been mainly formed by their personal experiences with funerals and death rather than by more distant or indirect factors.

People who showed the most positive attitudes toward funerals were those who had been more personally involved in pre-funeral ritual activities, and who also reported positive grief adjustment.

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