Boom in cremation hides surprising truths about what Americans really want when they die

Nearly two-thirds of Americans now opt for cremation – a figure that has been steadily increasing for five decades.

On the surface, this proportion tells a simple story: the nation has embraced cremation, while its preference for coffin burials has declined.

But as a specialist in funeral and cemetery law, I decided to explore this trend further.

I wanted to know if people were embracing cremation because they actually preferred it, or if they were rejecting coffin burial for one reason or another. I also looked to see if consumers were open to new options in funeral care, like water cremation and human composting.

You’re dead – what’s next?

With funding from the Cremation Association of North America and the Order of the Good Death, a nonprofit organization that promotes more informed, less fear-based conversations about death and dying, I launched the first academic survey of consumer preferences for funeral care in 2024.

The survey presented more than 1,500 U.S. adults in a nationally representative sample with the definitions of six legal methods of disposition in random order. Respondents were asked if they had “heard” of this method and if they would “consider” this method. The six methods were cremation, casket burial, green burial, donation to science, water cremation, and human composting.

At the end of the survey, respondents were asked to rank the six layout methods in terms of preference.

While cremation, casket burial, and donation to science are almost universally available in the United States, the other three disposition methods are not.

Green burial — defined as the burial of human remains without embalming, contained only in a biodegradable shroud or casket — is legal in all 50 states and Washington, but is offered by only a small portion of cemeteries.

Water cremation, also known as alkaline hydrolysis, is a process in which human remains are placed in a pressurized chamber filled with water and chemicals and finally ground into powder. Water cremation is legal in 28 states but is not offered by many funeral homes.

Human composting, also known as natural organic reduction, is a process in which human remains are placed in a container filled with natural materials and microorganisms that decompose the body into soil. It is legal in 14 states and currently commercially available in only three.

The paradox of cremation

A central tension emerged in the survey results: While 72.6% of respondents said they would consider cremation, only 33.4% listed it as their first choice. Burial in caskets edged it out at 35.9% as the top-ranked preference. Yet the actual cremation rate – 62% – is almost double the reported rate of prime.

So what’s going on?

The survey did not ask respondents to explain their reasoning and intentionally left out costs because they vary widely by region. But the numbers strongly imply that many Americans choose cremation not because it’s their first preference, but because their first choice is either unavailable or too expensive.

For example, 40.4% of respondents indicated they would consider human composting, and 5.9% listed it as their first choice. But currently, fewer than 1,000 corpses are composted each year in the United States.

This is likely because the vast majority of funeral homes do not offer this service and consumers may have difficulty finding the handful of providers. Human composting is also more expensive than cremation. The average cost of direct cremation is around $2,000, while human composting typically costs between $5,000 and $7,000. Given these obstacles, it is certainly possible that many consumers will simply turn to their second choice: cremation.

This trend applies to all regions of the country, where actual casket burial rates closely match reported prime rates, while cremation rates far exceed them. For example, in the South, the burial rate closely follows the 45.7% who listed it as their first preference. But the cremation rate was 53.5 percent, nearly double the 27.3 percent that ranked it first.

Baby boomers – the generation currently at the forefront of end-of-life planning – are the most willing to consider cremation (78.8%) and the least willing to consider burial in a casket (just 54.8%). But do they eagerly choose cremation or do they simply opt for it by default due to logistical or financial constraints?

The neo-traditional Generation Z?

At the same time, the data suggests that the youngest adults surveyed are moving in the opposite direction.

A striking 51.7% of Gen Z respondents ranked burial in a casket as their first choice, compared to just 27.1% of Baby Boomers. Only 55.9% of Gen Z were willing to consider cremation, lower than the current cremation rate.

It’s tempting to relate this to widely reported trends within Generation Z toward social conservatism, which includes this generation’s embrace of religions with burial traditions.

The survey indeed shows that conservative respondents strongly preferred burial in a coffin over cremation – 53.1% versus 28.4% – and that Catholic or Protestant respondents were significantly more likely to favor burial in a coffin. If Gen Z is moving in these directions, a preference for traditional burial would make sense.

But Gen Z may not understand what being buried in a casket entails.

Nearly half of those who ranked it first also said they would not consider embalming, even though embalming is usually part of the process. Some young respondents may be confusing casket burial with green burial, or may not understand the financial realities of their stated preference. In the United States, a standard viewing followed by a casket burial typically costs at least $10,000, depending on the cost of the burial plot.

Members of Generation Z, aged around 15 to 30, may also feel a stronger connection to their childhood homes. Other studies have found a correlation between geographic mobility and burial preference, perhaps because burial ties a person to a place in perpetuity.

Only longitudinal data, collected year after year, will make it possible to know whether these data reflect a persistent generational change or a fading age effect.

Go green

Although Americans have long been limited to two options, burial or cremation, the survey revealed a remarkable openness to new methods.

Only 47.5% of those surveyed had heard of a green burial. Yet after reading a brief definition, 56.4% said they would consider it. A third ranked it as first or second choice.

Water cremation showed an even more dramatic change: only 24% had heard of it, but 39.3% were willing to consider it after hearing about it.

These figures suggest significant unmet demand. Human composting was the first choice of nearly 6 percent of respondents — a striking figure for a method that has only been around for six years and is available in only a few states.

The bottom line is that the cremation rate may be artificially inflated due to limitations in awareness, availability and legal access to greener alternatives.

The future of American funeral care is probably not a march toward more cremation. Instead, it will likely be a path fraught with pitfalls, unfulfilled desires, generational surprises, and alternatives that require a little more time to appear on people’s radars.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit news organization that brings you trusted facts and analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Tanya D. Marsh, Wake Forest University

Learn more:

Tanya D. Marsh is a board member of Recompose, a Washington state funeral home that exclusively offers natural organic discounts and a board member of the North Carolina Funeral Consumers Alliance. Funding for Wake Forest Law’s survey of consumer preferences for death care was provided by the Cremation Association of North America and the Order of the Good Death.