By Li Lan, Wang Weijin & Zhang Qiyan, Research Team on “The Establishment of a Funeral & Interment Service System to Ensure the Peace of the Dead”, DRC

Research Report, No.136, 2020 (Total 5880) 2020-6-5

Abstract: As one of the most important links to protect and ensure the well-being of our people, funeral and interment service has a notable impact on social harmony and stability and the ecological development. At present, China has made some progress in a series of reforms concerning the funeral and interment industry, while in some places, over-priced tombs, funerals alongside the street, bundle sale consumption and luxury tombs still occur from time to time, reflecting that there are still much work to do to solve the existing problems. For example, the understanding, attention and management in this filed is yet to be enhanced, the supply of land for basic funeral and interment service need calls for further increase, the supervision institutions and mechanism for service industry market is yet to be improved and there are still many difficulties to overcome in changing backward customs. To tackle the issues mentioned above, this paper has offered the following policy options: 1. work related to ensuring the peace of the dead needs to be included in our basic public service system and proper handling of people’s afterlife affairs need to be set as a focal point in the government’s agenda; 2. the leading role of the government in funeral and interment industry reform needs to be strengthened by promoting relevant rules and regulation system, removing land and industrial access barriers and smoothing the institutions and mechanism concerning service supply and supervision; 3. efforts need to be made in pushing ahead with equal basic funeral services for all and meeting with people’s demand for diversified, specialized and high-quality funeral and interment services.

Keywords: funeral and interment service, ensuring the peace of the dead, public service