Even before a 1.66 billion state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sparked a public outcry, the Japanese have long grumbled about funeral costs, the highest in the world. An increase in the number of grieving families is opting for low-key send-offs, with the pandemic providing an extra reason to avoid large ceremonies.
The average spending per funeral in the past year was 1.1 million, down 40% from an earlier, pre-COVID survey, according to Kamakura Shinsho, an online information service specializing in elderly care, funerals and graves. That is still around a quarter of the average annual salary and doesn't cover extra costs such as offerings to Buddhist monks. According to a 2020 survey by the U.K.-based insurance provider SunLife, Japanese funerals cost around 3 million before the epidemic, about three to four times what is spent in the U.S. and Europe.
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