Booming "dismal trade"
When you mention businesses aimed at the silver-haired, there's no way to avoid mentioning the "dismal trade"-i.e. the one practiced by undertakers.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, deaths in Taiwan surpassed 100,000 in 1988 and have been gradually rising ever since. In 2010, there were nearly 146,000 deaths here, with a death rate of 0.63%.
Lee Jih-pin, secretary-general of the Chinese Life and Death Academic Society, notes that, based on a life expectancy of 80, Taiwan should experience 12 consecutive years of total deaths topping 400,000 beginning in 2036, as the final curtain starts to fall on Taiwan's baby-boomer generation. Afterwards, the numbers should drop a bit, but there will still be 18 years when the numbers of deaths sit around 380,000. Those figures will certainly support growth within the funeral industry!
Lee explains that funeral and other death expenses run to NT$360,000 on average. In 10 years time, the funeral industry will top NT$140 billion per year, reaching 2.6 times its size today. "Its prospects will remain bright for 30 years, which represents a much longer run than the 10 years that high tech had."
Taiwan's undertaking industry already experienced one revolution in the 1990s, with a shift from burials to cremation. (The rate of cremation here now exceeds 90%.) Industry estimates suggest that existing ossuary spaces won't be used up for another 40 years. Consequently, there simply isn't a shortage of space for the dead. For this reason, "the focus of future funeral innovations will be on simplifying and improving," Lee explains.
For example, with the Taiwanese habit of waiting for auspicious days for funerals, the Taipei Second Funeral Parlor has already encountered the problem of a lack of freezer space, so that coffins have to be stored in hallways with ice used to keep bodies from putrefying. With the explosion of future deaths, the problem will only grow worse. Therefore the government authorities have already invited industry representatives to discuss the possibility of promoting a revolution "to cremate bodies first and hold funeral ceremonies afterwards." That would both alleviate scheduling bottlenecks and reduce public health risks.
In step with changing ideas about the nature of being old, a revolution in new products and services for the elderly looms, in areas ranging from food, clothing and shelter, to leisure and funeral arrangements. You and I will be the beneficiaries of this revolution, as well as its instigators and agents of change.