[imagesource: AFP/Guillem Sartorio]

In July, social media was awash with jarring images of diggers hard at work, and it was reported that Gauteng was preparing 1,5 million graves in anticipation of a nightmarish COVID-19 scenario as the province became the epicentre of the virus.

As it turned out, this wasn’t the full extent of the story – that number referred to the collective capacity municipalities could take, and the province wasn’t preparing graves for deaths due to complications from the virus alone, but for burials in general, should the scenario arise where multiple people had to be buried at once.

Since then, Kwa-Zulu Natal has taken over as the country’s epicentre, and the Western Cape has already taken steps to close a number of its emergency field hospitals as infection rates decline.

During the pandemic, two topics have come up often.

The cost of living as jobs are lost and livelihoods impacted by lockdowns and efforts to curb the spread of the disease, and death.

Deaths are usually spoken about, as in the case of the Gauteng burial sites and our records of how the pandemic is progressing, in terms of how many have occurred. What isn’t often covered is the cost of dying.

According to City Press, death is big business in South Africa, with an average spend of around R26 875 on funerals, making this the fourth most expensive place in the world to die.

This was revealed in research conducted by SunLife, an insurance company in the UK, that looked at the average cost of funerals in 35 countries, which they then compared to the average salary in those countries.

In South Africa, the average take-home salary is depressingly low.

Overall, Germany is the most expensive European country in which to die, but sits well below the costs of more expensive Asian countries like China and Japan at only 16% of the average salary.

Not everywhere in Asia is expensive to die however, with the cost of dying in India just a mere 2% of an average salary. Based on the research, the lowest percentage of salary spent on the average funeral was in Russia (1,3%) and Denmark (2,4%).

A breakdown of the top 10 countries with the highest funeral costs looks like this:

Image: News24/ SunLife

In South Africa, that R26 875 accounts for around 13% of the average salary.

According to the report, inevitable costs arise when we lose a loved one, and the extent of those costs are often determined by custom.

In South African culture, it is normal for all pictures, mirrors and reflective surfaces to be turned around during the grieving period, and it is custom for immediate family not to speak during the funeral.

That’s a very generalised description of South African ‘culture’. We have a diverse and wide-ranging cultural tapestry in this country. The above might be true for some people, but doesn’t represent everyone.

The point is that many of our customs require elaborate ceremonies, which, when you factor in food at services, the high cost of coffins and headstones, and other administrative expenses, all adds up.

Economic hardships brought about by a pandemic, that is in turn contributing to the country’s death toll, adds up to a pretty bleak situation for those wanting to give their friends and family a worthy send-off.

[source:sunlife&citypress]