More than half of South Koreans who died in 2005 were cremated, pointing to the public's increasing preference for cremation over burial, a government report said Monday.
The country's cremation rate stood at 52.6 percent last year, up 3.42 percentage points from the previous year, according to the report compiled by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
It was the first time for the cremation rate to exceed 50 percent. The figure, which stood at 10.7 percent in 1970, has been rising at a fast pace since the 1990's, reaching 38.3 percent in 2001.
The high cremation rate came five years after an amendment to a cremation bill was passed in 2000 to give state funding to the construction of public crematories.
Amid an acute shortage of gravesites, a growing number of South Koreans are now adopting cremation despite a traditional emphasis on the importance of ancestral respect through burial and gravesite visits.
The ministry said it plans to mandate local governments to increase the number of cremation facilities as well as to boost state funds in an effort to increase cremation.
It estimated the cremation rate would break through the 70-percent mark by 2010.
Despite growing demand for cremation, the country currently has only 46 public cremation facilities, according to the ministry.
Seoul, Oct. 2 (Yonhap News)
S. Korea's cremation rate tops 50 pct in 2005 |
