BETTING ON THE INEVITABLE
China recorded 11.31 million deaths in 2025, roughly 31,000 a day. That’s the country’s highest toll since 1960, and the fourth straight year deaths outnumbered births.
With 23 per cent of the national population aged 60 and above, demographers expect the number to keep climbing for decades. A 2024 study by Fudan University projected that annual deaths would not peak until around 2061, at close to 19 million.
The workforce meant to handle that growing demand is small.
As of end-2024, China had 4,794 funeral service institutions – funeral parlours, columbaria and cemeteries – employing about 96,000 people, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Yet just 16 educational institutions offer funeral-related majors, according to the Ministry of Education’s programme registry – up from five in 2022.
Together, they produce about 1,000 graduates a year against an annual shortfall of around 10,000 workers, in skilled roles such as embalming and cosmetology, funeral planning and hosting, cemetery design and grief counselling, according to industry estimates cited by Chinese media.
For a field long burdened by social taboo, the courses are attracting striking interest.
The country’s first bachelor’s degree in funeral services, launched in 2024 at the ministry-run China Civil Affairs University (CCAU) in Beijing, filled every seat in its first year, with admission cut-off scores 20 to 30 points above the university’s other programmes.
The scores can rival those associated with more traditionally prestigious academic routes.
This year, the lowest score admitted to the funeral studies programme at Changsha Social Work College, a vocational institute, was 570 – above the admission threshold for many public universities offering bachelor’s degrees.
