Rise of Private Funeral Services for Unclaimed Bodies in Japan Raises Concerns Over Residential Storage

▲ Japanese cemetery (The photo above is not related to the contents of the article.)

Private services are emerging in Japan to cremate the bodies of people with no surviving relatives or those from low-income households and enshrine their ashes on behalf of local governments.

While municipalities are increasingly utilizing these companies for their advantage of handling body disposal at a low cost, the Asahi Shimbun reported on the 20th that hygiene and human rights issues are raising concerns, such as bodies being stored near residential areas and a lack of verification regarding whether cremated ashes are properly kept.

According to a low-cost body collection plan proposed by a private funeral company to a local government in the Tokyo metropolitan area, the company promoted that it takes over unclaimed bodies, including those eligible for livelihood protection, Japan's social security system similar to South Korea's basic livelihood security system.

The proposal stated that if the deceased is located within 150 kilometers of the Kanto region near Tokyo, it would charge 165,000 yen (approx. 1.48 million won), which includes transporting the body, encoffinment, cremation, storing the ashes for several years, and holding a memorial service.

This is a relatively low amount compared to the 210,000 yen (approx. 1.85 million won) spent by local governments in the Tokyo metropolitan area on funerals for livelihood protection recipients.

According to Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the number of people who received the funeral assistance subsidy—a government program supporting cremation costs upon the death of a livelihood protection recipient—reached a record high of 56,447 as of 2024.

The money spent on their funerals was estimated at 12 billion yen (approx. 105.2 billion won) annually.

Additionally, unclaimed deaths, where no one steps forward to take the body, are estimated to account for 3 percent of annual deaths.

According to projections by institutions such as the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research in Japan, about 40 percent of elderly households in Japan are projected to be single-person households by 2040, leading to expectations that this ratio will rise further.

Local governments in Japan appear to welcome the emergence of private companies, viewing it as a way to reduce the public cost burden of handling the bodies of livelihood protection recipients or unclaimed persons and to conveniently outsource related tasks.

One company interviewed by the Asahi Shimbun conducted sales activities targeting welfare departments of municipalities in the Tokyo metropolitan area, securing orders for handling over 1,000 bodies.

However, poor management by these companies has been pointed out, such as installing refrigerators in warehouses in residential areas to store bodies.

Amid lax verification by local governments, the situation remains unclear as to whether cremated ashes are being properly stored.

A welfare division official at a Japanese local government worried, saying, "If a refrigerator breaks down due to a power outage or other reasons and a body decomposes, a major disaster could happen."

An official from the Japanese funeral industry association advised that funeral companies should be shifted to a registration system and be required to have managers who have completed training on body placement and public hygiene.

(Photo: Yonhap News)

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