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South Africans tend to spend more time and resources on planning for death rather than life, says Terry Bell in his latest Labour Wrap.
Labour Wrap: How death kills us financially
Cape Town - South Africans tend to spend more time and resources on planning for death rather than life, says Terry Bell in his latest Labour Wrap. He says he discovered this while researching the high level of household debt, as the festive season is again approaching.
He discovered that the majority of citizens prioritise funeral insurance over pensions. And yet the pay-outs from such policies rarely meet the full cost of increasingly extravagant modern funerals. As a result, thousands of families borrow money and go into deeper debt when a family member dies.
Most South Africans, he says, seem to have bought into the idea that all the expensive funeral trappings are necessary and are justified by tradition. But, says Bell, the often elaborate and always expensive rituals have to do with commerce and have little, if anything, to do with culture.
And even the labour movement has unquestioningly accepted this state of affairs, with most unions providing funeral cover to members and not campaigning for any alternatives. The National Union of Metalworkers even owns one of the country’s biggest funeral businesses, Doves.
Bell adds that these matters, including wasteful land use and environmental damage caused by our burial practices were brought to the fore in Cape Town this month by the Death Matters Initiative. Linked to the University of Cape Town, this initiative is focussed on a 30-minute documentary film about our funeral practices that, coupled with discussions on the issues raised, is now being shown in communities.
The object is to get us to challenge and to change practices that are both financially and environmentally harmful.
(Please note: Bell will be away for the next six weeks so the next Labour Wrap will be available in mid-November).* Add your voice to this and / or the big labour debate and send Terry your job creation ideas.
* Terry Bell is a political, economic and labour analyst. Views expressed are his own. Follow him on twitter @telbelsa.
