“The average household in KwaZulu-Natal in eastern South Africa spends the equivalent of an adult’s annual income on a single funeral.”
A year’s wages to bury one person. In western Kenya, 63% of families who fell into poverty over 25 years blamed funeral costs. This is not cultural mismanagement. It is a social obligation so deeply embedded that families will pawn everything they own rather than bury someone cheaply. The economics are brutal and the escape hatch does not exist.