Funerals are changing. For some families, the traditional service remains an important moment of witness and togetherness. For others, the cremation happens quietly, with a gathering held later — or in a different way entirely.
In this episode of The Pure Podcast, our content lead Sabine Groven speaks with Prof Kate Woodthorpe, sociologist and co-director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath, about how our attitudes towards death and funerals are evolving.
Drawing on more than two decades of research, Kate reflects on how conversations around death have shifted from something once seen as niche or uncomfortable to a subject people are increasingly willing to approach openly. They discuss the rise of direct cremation, the growing influence of digital memorials, and the reality that today’s families are more used to questioning tradition and making choices that reflect their own values.
In the interview, Kate mentions two research papers:
Bodies and ceremonies: is the UK funeral industry still fit for purpose?
Listen to the full episode
Transcript
Sabine Groven
Firstly, I want to say, Kate, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
Kate Woodthorpe
You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.
Sabine Groven
Could you just kick us off by telling us a bit about your background and your work?
Kate Woodthorpe
So I'm a professor of sociology at the University of Bath in the UK. I'm also co-director of the Centre for Death and Society there, and that's a research centre that specialises in the end of life. And we're not attached to a medical school or any sort of clinical practice. So we tend to look at the social, political, economic and cultural context in which the end of life is experienced. I've been doing this for 20 years now, which I find jaw-dropping. I've done a lot of work and research on funeral costs, on families at the end of life, on cemeteries, crematoria, and most recently, on whether or not deceased people's funeral wishes should have some kind of legal protection. And I'm really interested in this area, because I think how we handle death, collectively as a population, is a bit of a mirror back to us of what we value in life. And when I first started, people who were interested in death and dying, I think, were seen as rather niche and rather strange. And over 20 years, I think I've seen a lot of change for the better in terms of people being much more prepared and willing and able to talk about some really difficult subjects, but to do so in a very constructive and open way. So I've seen a lot of change in 20 years, and I think I'm very pleased to talk about some of that today.
Sabine Groven
Yes, attitudes are changing, definitely to how we talk about death, but you started 20 years ago when it was more of a taboo subject, and so I'm interested to know what led you to study this area?
Kate Woodthorpe
Well, most academics who specialise in death and dying have had some personal experience, something that opens their eyes to what happens. And I'm no different, and I've written about this, so I've made it public before. I had some very profound experiences in my formative years. So I had some friends who were killed in a car crash when I was a teenager, and that was it was life changing, because I realised how precious and precarious life is, how there are no guarantees. I felt very strongly at the time, and I still feel it 30 years later, and it's almost 30 years, which is just incredible. It's almost like everyone's got a little egg timer over them, and no one knows how much is left in that little timer, as the Sands of Time, you know, are decreasing. And it's just driven me massively, I think, in my life, to make the most of everything. And so that's why I got interested in it all, or I realised, wow. And then I had some more deaths in quick succession, but of more elderly family members, and their funerals were all really, really different, from my friends through to my relatives. And then when I was doing my degrees in sociology, I think I'm really interested in how people work, but collectively as a society, communities and families, it's not necessarily about individuals. It's about those kinds of relationships that people have with institutions and organisations. And I always just ended up coming back to death. I didn't plan it. It wasn't a deliberate thing. It was more about, actually, I just find this really interesting, and it's key, and it does I really think it's not about death necessarily. It's about how what we value in life and how we live our lives, and what we want to leave behind, and the memories we want people to have, and what rituals help people to manage that transition. When someone's died, they're not in their lives anymore. It's a really powerful point in life that can teach the living a heck of a lot.
Sabine Groven
Yes, absolutely, and we're going to talk a bit about your research now. So there is this widespread belief that a funeral service is essential for healthy grieving. So I wanted to ask you, what does your research tell us about that?
Kate Woodthorpe
Well, I think funerals are changing. That's a really, really critical to to say upfront, and I think that's not because the need for ritual is necessarily changing the need for social support, but it's more about people's expectations, people's normal patterns of communication and coming together where people get support from what I've observed over the last 20 years is funerals are really critical for some people. Yeah, in terms of that, that is where a major source of support, solidarity and community for them. It's very important for religious beliefs. It's also particularly the manner in which someone has died that can be absolutely critical to whether or not a funeral is important at that point. So when it's a very premature death, very unexpected, very shocking, maybe violent in a car accident, like I was talking about with my friends, or that class is premature, you know.
So, someone who's under 74, 75, there's something there about our sense of injustice, of a life cut short, and I think at those points that funerals have a very different purpose. However, the evidence suggests that the available evidence, not just from me but from others, suggests that funerals don't actually shape people's grief outcomes that profoundly, and that relationship isn't necessarily there. But what we don't know is that there was some excellent work in Japan that was done, which also raised the point. And the question about, well, is a funeral necessarily about grief, or is it about re-establishing social relationships with people? And that, I think, that's very, very important point. But I would also then counter that by saying, and there's no, there's no, I haven't done a study on this, and I think there's a gap to understand that is that if more and more people's way of receiving and giving support and staying in touch with people is online, which it is, and that's a really recent phenomena, that's what in the last 15 years, we don't yet know how that's going to play out. But if people are more used to that, at least from people who are 70 and below, who have who are very digitally literate. It might actually be quite unusual to come together in person and in a very public way and see people, and you might not need it, because actually, your connections are managed in different ways. You don't necessarily have to be with people in person.
And we did a we also did a study that looked at cremation choices, creation, funeral choices, and part of that included direct cremation, and it was a very small sample, pre covid, and there are lots of caveats to it. In terms of the people we spoke to, I feel they were very confident in their choice of why they've done a direct cremation, so they were willing to come forward and to talk about it as a positive choice. But what we got from that was a different narrative from what they were doing. So it was, it wasn't necessarily just about costs, it was also about control. So a lot of them had the person had died from dementia, perhaps, or a long-term illness, and they'd said many, many goodbyes, and they were exhausted at the end of it, and they just couldn't, they couldn't do the performance of a funeral. Others felt that they actually wanted to. They recognised there was a need to deal with the body, but something had to happen. You know, when someone has died, that their body does need to be dealt with in some way. But they wanted to have a funeral ritual or some kind of gathering at a different time of year in a different location to make sure people could be there, and that it was perhaps invite-only. So it was a very they wanted to do something that was, there was kind of behind closed doors, and that's what we that's what we wrote about in a paper that I can perhaps send to you, and there's a link to include with this when you share it.
But that's was saying that perhaps this, this is actually, perhaps what we're seeing as well, is for those people for whom it is a conscious choice, rather than it being out of necessity and financial it's actually giving them more options, because it means that they're not under pressure to do a very conventional, formulaic funeral, that they can really take the time to think about, maybe do some of the ashes on mum's favorite beach when so and so can come back from where they live now, perhaps in the in the school holidays, so the drunk grandchildren can be there. You know that they're just changing what might be possible, and I do think that's a really important point to make within all this about these debates about the value of a funeral or not, because it's about gatherings are still important. But there are different ways of doing gatherings, and perhaps that's what we're seeing. It's not necessarily saying funerals aren't important, but it's just that there are actually more options now and ways to do it. But there is a massive caveat as well. Is that what we don't know, and I think there is a real need for research, is when direct cremations happen, there will be a cohort of people that might have expected to be invited to a funeral, and they're they're often not privy to the immediate families in perhaps invitation only event or so these kind of like concentric circles, almost, so they've got the immediate family and.
And as you go out, all these people might have expected to be there, but don't, aren't, and what we don't know is what, what's it like for them, what's what, and also what is lost for them? And we do need to understand a bit more about that, because that's that kind of question of, are we? Are we losing something really important as a way for those people to come back together, so sort of extended family or old school friends or colleagues, or is it actually that they're all connected online anyway, and they don't feel the need to see each other in person? We don't know.
Sabine Groven
Yes, I have a lot of follow-up questions to this. So you talked about how we live our lives so much online now and digitally, and when someone passes away, it's quite common that you will have an online site with pictures of them, and people can light digital candles, or they can write tributes, that kind of thing. Do you think that can replace some of the coming together that people feel like a sense of saying goodbye, although it's digital?
Kate Woodthorpe
It's a very good question, and there's quite a lot of research that asks that, you know, is that is the digital a place in the in-person? And I, I don't get a sense that there is a consensus as to whether it is or not. And then on, then you've got this other dynamic that's coming in about the dead, kind of continuing online now, because of people's social media platforms, for example. And there's all the videos that you can access and their, their their digital footprint, and that's a lot in the news at the moment about access to that those and where the parents can have access to it and other people and who owns what in terms of data, and then you've got a whole industry that's developing that is actually about, I don't know if you've heard of these things, actually being able to take people's likenesses and their voices and either deliberately or not deliberately, they could have recorded them deliberately for this purpose, or it's just taking stuff that was there online and actually then creating their likenesses, and then you can interact with them and that, I mean, we're going into science fiction realm there. But I think that's going to have a really destabilising effect, potentially on what it means when you are dead and have you, have you gone? And also people's control over their memory. You know what is left behind? You know what is left there online, forever. And I think, well, forever, as long as you can access it, I think a lot is happening, and it's happening at speed and research, at least, can only play catch-up all the time. Yeah, yeah.
Sabine Groven
I was recently talking to Dr Mary-Frances O'Connor, who's a grief expert. And she was talking about how grief is a form of learning that your loved one is gone, and so if you have constant access to their likeness, I can imagine, I'm not an expert in this, but I can imagine that would be much harder to fully move on with your grief, although it's not something that is a chapter that you close, but I can imagine that it's harder to go back to life when you have that constant reminder.
Kate Woodthorpe
Yes, I mean, this isn't my area of specialism, but as a human being, I think, I think a lot about the film ready. Player one. I don't know if you've seen that, but this idea that actually, your virtual life becomes more meaningful than your physical life, that's where you're living. So there's, there's, I think there's so much that's happening at the moment in terms of how people are engaging with the virtual world. And is that, you know, that question that you asked, is it replacing real life, or is it supplementing it? And I think, I mean, I think, it's still evolving, and will continue to evolve. But yes, I'd have thought, I mean, I'm not a psychologist, but I would have thought psychologically, having people that you know have died actually continue to engage with you without it being part of a religious belief system. I don't know what that does to people's psyche and sense of here and now. I don't, I don't know if there's any evidence on that yet, because it hasn't actually happened enough for us to know.
Sabine Groven
Yeah, I want to talk a bit more about the research into grief experience between people who've had a traditional funeral and those who didn't. What can your research tell us about this idea that traditional funerals are therapeutic and non traditional memorial?
Kate Woodthorpe
There's no way of actually knowing whether something at that point is directly connected to a particular outcome or not. What I would say is that there is an increasing variety. City in funerals. So this idea of a traditional versus non-traditional, I think, is actually really blurring. Now, I've worked a lot with Simon Cox over the years, who is now a consultant in funerals, a funeral expert, and he would talk about his disaggregation. It's almost like people are approaching funerals thinking about, rather than buying an off-the-shelf package, you know, one size fits all, is actually thinking, okay, these are the bits that I will outsource to a funeral director or someone else to lead on, but these are the bits that I will handle myself. And there's this kind, it's much more of a mix-and-match model now, and I think what's coming is more and more of that. Because if you think about who the next consumers are of funerals in the next 10 years, it's going to be people who are much more digitally literate, but also have had their whole lives been consumers, so they are used to shopping around, comparing costs, not necessarily deferring to authority.
This is the way it should be done. They'll be going well, actually, am I willing to spend 2000 pounds on that? That's what's going to be happening, because that's what people's experience is. They will arrive at this point in their lives with a lot of experience in making those kinds of decisions, rather than just handing over and going, Okay, this is the way it should be done, and this is what's expected. There'll be more considerations, there'll be made, and their acclamation throws an absolute, you know, a bomb into that, in terms of if that's the right word, but because there's a really big question there, do we even need to do this at all? Can we do something that is like I say, behind closed doors? Invite Only? Do we need a funeral director? And that's really challenging to the funeral sector, very, you know, this is their livelihoods. But I would, I would say that you can't. You know what is coming in terms of consumers; you can't change that. This is people who were born from these onwards, who have, you know, lived a life of being ever more used to getting what they want or having to make consumer decisions about what they spend their money on. And so that's that, it's kind of inevitable.
Sabine Groven
Yes, absolutely. And also, when you hear about it from other people, maybe some friends or family have done it, it becomes a bit more normalised. Because I think it's one of those things where you do what you think is expected of you, and you don't really question it, and now people are starting to question it, question it, and consider their options.
Kate Woodthorpe
Yeah, I think what does concern me is when, when people are choosing direct cremation because they're so worried about money and that, because we're talking about it in terms of it being a very positive choice, and it being quite meaningful when people don't have choices because, because the cost of living is now such that their disposable income and their ability to save is under such pressure, I think that's when there's a whole other kind of issue to be thinking about, because choice, choice is not available to everyone, and I think that's where a lot of concerns come from, from people who are very concerned about the rise of direct cremation, what is lost for those people for whom they don't have choices, it's becoming the only viable option for them, and what is lost in terms of their social support networks, or loss of people coming together. So I get that. But again, there isn't, to the best of my knowledge, there isn't any sort of really robust independent research in that area. And I think there needs to be.
Sabine Groven
There isn't anything stopping people from coming together with a direct cremation. There are so many nice ways that people can do that. But again, it's because there isn't a set format. People are having to think about it and consider it. And sometimes that might be challenging as well.
Kate Woodthorpe
Yeah, it is challenging. And I think also, I think the whole sector, including direct cremation providers, need to do, need to do much more to build public trust. There's a quite there's a lot of, I think, a lot of cynicism about the funeral sector and practices and the transparency of how bodies are being managed behind the scenes and where cremations take place and the care of the dead. Yeah, we're seeing that right now. There are huge inquiries going on and police investigations about the care of the dead. So I think there is a very big job to be done by everyone in the funeral sector to really reassure the public and consumers about what goes on behind the scenes. And so that you can trust the providers. And that includes, yeah, like, say that absolutely includes direct cremation providers.
Sabine Groven
Absolutely. I am from Norway, where cremation is not that – it's just the last couple of years have become more normal than burial, but Norway's a very traditional country, and we had a family member pass away last year. And because I do what I do for a living, I thought we could, we should provide direct information that would be appropriate for this person. There wouldn't be many people attending the funeral. It would give us a bit more time. And people in Norway, like my friends and family, didn't even know what that was, and when I told them that this person had passed away, they went, when is your funeral? And I said, Oh, we're actually not going to do a traditional funeral. We're going to spread the person's ashes in May, where we used to have a cabin, because that would be really nice. And people were like, oh, okay, that sounds good. So I was more worried, I think, about what people would judge me, because there is this expectation to do things a certain way, but it didn't happen. It's just that people hadn't heard about it.
Kate Woodthorpe
To me, that raises a really important point about who a funeral is for. It's a massive question. Is a funeral for the deceased to say goodbye to them, is it for their immediate family or their immediate network, who will really feel the notice that that person is not there, or is it for the wider network and meeting these kinds of social obligations and expectations of what other people want? And I think, I think that's part of that, that whole point about people being savvy consumers and used to to more used to at least getting the kind of services that they want. I think people overall are going to feel a bit more confident about, perhaps pushing back about what is expected, and saying, Well, you may, you know that I may be getting a bit of pressure from people that when's the funeral first question to ask, but and feeling a bit more confident to say, actually, there isn't going to be one. Are we going to do something that's at a different time of year? It's an invite-only affair with the blowback from that. So I think there is, you know, the funerals are emblematic or symbolise bigger social changes that happen. And we're talking about massive social change that's happened over decades, about people being very consumer-oriented and much more individualised. You know, individually. You know, it's about individual fulfilment rather than social obligation. And I think because people have been living longer and longer with an ageing population, funerals have remained rather untouched, and now we're actually now we're seeing more funerals taking place. And you know what? What has happened to most other industries and sectors is happening at funerals?
Sabine Groven
Yeah, exactly. And it has. It is a sector with a lot of tradition and very heavy traditions and very similar rights for a long, long period of time. So probably natural that it's taken a while. But when you start to question something, I think you kind of realise what is and what isn't for you. And some people will always want a traditional a lot of people will always want a traditional way. And that's absolutely fine, but it's Yeah, but
Kate Woodthorpe
It's what is happening now. I think that kind of pushback about funerals is what happened with weddings 50 years ago. So my understanding about weddings, you know, they used to be much more public. You would invite the local community. There would be an element of it; anyone could turn up at least to the service, the legal part of it, and you invited all of your extended family and all your parents' friends. And then divorce laws came in, and people, people didn't get married for life. Their civil partnerships came in, and the people started to think, actually, we can do this differently. People might have multiple partnerships and multiple marriages, not even getting married at all, so having a civil partnership over their life, and I think what's happened, what happened there similarly, is now going to happen with funerals. And actually, do we need to do it this way? Are there other ways to do it that suit us, and that may that may be that you might still have a funeral on the day of the cremation? It might be that there are only four of you there, and you have to bear witness to the body actually being cremated, and then you have a memorial service a few months later that's much more public. And also, when you're in a different place, in terms of immediately post-death versus a few months later on. And I do think there is a lot to be learned from other religions, and I don't know too much about it, but I really like the idea of Orthodox Jewish culture. I. Where, actually, you deal with the body quite quickly, and then you have a series of rituals afterwards. And actually, I think that's wonderful. I think that's one, you know, that's just what people need. They need it. You know, there's this build-up to a funeral, and then nothing, actually, what people are oftentimes, just from my own experience and observing, it is people, there is an element of something has to happen immediately, but actually, they need it over time. They need support over time. And can we not build in more rituals or more coming together afterwards as well, to help them sort of transition into life without this person?
Sabine Groven
I think that sounds really nice. I'm actually writing an article at the moment about different ways of saying goodbye, and it's not about memorials or spreading ashes or funerals. It's more about those little things that you can do, either together or alone, to help you say goodbye. Because I think as individuals, we will have different ways that will work for us. And one ceremony on one day, like you said, That's not, that's not going to be enough for a lot of people.
Kate Woodthorpe
But also, it's about your entry point into those conversations. So there was a really good paper written a few years ago by a colleague of mine at the University of Bath called Tony Walter, and he took, he questioned, and I can share the link with you as well for this, but he queried whether, if people had a different entry point to funerals to talk about them and to plan them, would they do things differently? So he was querying whether, if your first engagement was with a person who was more focused on the ritual and the meaning of the ritual. Would you do things differently, rather than immediately making the phone call, handing over the body, and then you're suddenly on a track of what happens, but taking that time to think could, how could we do this in a way that meets particular needs, honors the wishes of the deceased person, but meets our own needs, which might be quite different, manages the level of pressure that you feel from other people or not, depending on how confident you feel with handling that. That was a really good paper as well. That really influenced my thinking.
Sabine Groven
Yes, that sounds interesting. We'll link that in the description together with your research as well. So I wanted to ask you, what does it change for people when the cremation and the commemoration are not tied to the same day?
Kate Woodthorpe
I think, well, a really critical point for anyone listening or thinking about doing this is considering how important your body is. Because what the the point of having a funeral on the day of the actual burial or cremation in this case is, is about actually witnessing it, witnessing that you know whether they're in a coffin or you even see them, but more likely in this country, coffin that to be in the presence of the coffin, to know that the person's in there, to know that they're being cremated in that same time period, can be very, very powerful. But for some people, it doesn't matter as much to pay when you know to observe that, to bear witness to it. And I think part of that is the decline of religious belief and faith and the idea that something else is going to happen afterwards. I think part of that is also the way in which most people die now, which is older, with lots of illnesses and with a body that has been failing for quite a long time, and and for the people who, for whom we've got dementia or Alzheimer's, there's been a kind of split, almost, of the of the person and the body. And you hear a lot in research on dementia, and the person went a long time.
Kate Woodthorpe
So the idea that the person is the body, and the body is the person, who is changing because of the way in which people are dying, that and that then changes, depending on the extent to which people feel they need to be in the presence of the body at that point, or whether ashes are sufficient. And of course, ashes have a lot more options, because they're portable. So you can split them up, you can take them to different places. You can do different things with them. And you see people doing some really creative things, or scattering them around the world, or scattering them in locations that they went to on family holidays when they were young, or holding on to them and merging them with other people's, and then doing something with them. So all sorts of things are going on with ashes. And there have been quite a few studies on ashes, about their destinations that are really interesting. That's a whole other kind of creative industry. What? What can be done with them?
Sabine Groven
Yeah, you can send them to space and create diamonds and all sorts of things. So that's deeply personal.
Kate Woodthorpe
You know, because some people, the idea of wearing jewellery that contains ashes is abhorrent. For others, it's wonderful. They're always. With you, or you put them in tattoo ink and have tattoos. I mean, all sorts can beit's wonderful. They're always with you. Or you put them in tattoo ink and have tattoos. I think all sorts can be done.
Sabine Groven
Yeah, and that can be really based on the person you are honouring or yourself. What do you want to do? I've told my mum that I'm going to make jewellery out of her and she quite liked that.
Kate Woodthorpe
I think the main thing for anyone who's thinking about this, though, is whatever kind of cremation and ritual you would like, explain why. Because I think that gives people a kind of framework to think, okay, what are we working within? So if mum or dad really wanted a direct cremation, they didn't want money spent on it, okay, so that's, need to, how are we going to, but we really do need something. How do we manage that? To honour what they wanted whilst also getting what we need out of it. And there's also the other way around as well for people who have specified that they wanted a funeral, and then the family go oh no, we're going to do a direct cremation.
For whatever reason, cynically, money is part of that. I think for then the person who has made their wishes known about they want a funeral, they need to be really explicit as to why, and they need to be really explicit about who they expect to carry those wishes out and who they want to do this on their behalf so that they can ensure that there is a negotiation there, that someone is advocating on their behalf. So if someone else comes in and says, well, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to ignore their wishes entirely and do what we want. The song is going hang on a minute. This isn't right. We're going to have to find a middle ground.
Sabine Groven
Yes. That's a really interesting point because advocating for the rights or wishes of someone who has passed away and treating them with respect, even though they're no longer there.
Kate Woodthorpe
But that's what the Law Commission are looking at now in England and Wales, about whether, actually, people's wishes, funeral wishes, should have some kind of legal protection because family can come in and say we're not doing it for all sorts of reasons. And it might not be because they're bad people or about money. It could just be like, that's actually not what we need. Then the question is, again, going back to what we talked about, who is it for? What are you trying to achieve here? And in the vast majority of families, my experience and evidence show that there is a negotiation, and people find a way through.
But if your family is very fractured and fractious, if you've got estrangements, very strong views that can be explosive within families and that's what I'm looking at right now is well and how and what's the role of the funeral sector in mediating that and to end on a really positive note I think funeral directors and the funeral sector is they're doing a heck of a lot of work that's massive is invisible behind the scenes in terms of mediating between families for those families who were really stuck or can't agree or agonizing over how much to spend and you've got a funeral plan, and you've got people's wishes known, and the living want different things, and they have a really critical, facilitative role in trying to find a way forward, but they can't ever make that public. It is of confidentiality and reputational risk. I think that's again goes back to something I said earlier about that transparency. I think that's a whole load of work that needs to be done to show the value of that work so that people can feel really confident if they're doing a direct cremation, the reasons why they're doing it. And likewise, if they're doing a funeral, the reasons why they're doing it that way.
