South Africa is the world’s fourth most expensive place to die in and leads the continent in terms of high funeral expenses, APA learnt on Wednesday.
According to Cost of Dying International research done by the United Kingdom-based SunLife, the cost of burial or cremation accounts for 13 percent of the average annual salary in South Africa.
This translated to US$1,600 in cost for an average funeral in South Africa, the researchers said.
The average South African worker is paid around US$16,000 annually, according to Statistics South Africa.
This is in contrast to available data gathered by the life insurance provider’s research team that revealed that the average cost of dying across the world was only 10 percent of the average worker’s salary.
SunLife researchers said to calculate the average cost of dying across the world, the team worked out the average costs of funerals in 35 different countries and compared them to the respective cost of living and earnings in these states.
Japan was the most expensive place to die at 68 percent of salary, followed by China at 45.4 percent, and Germany at 16.4 percent, the research found.
Unfortunately, the researchers did not provide any funeral cost details of other African countries – apart from South Africa.
NM/jn/APA