Where people are living has an incredible affect on the number of families a local funeral provider will serve in a given time period.  Today’s article will introduce you to some graphics and articles about how demographics are shifting in the United States.  And, it is really important to know these demographic shifts if you expect your Death Care business to profit from them.

Two things led me to investigate these demographic shifts that are coming about in American society.  First of all, just last week Funeral Director Daily reported on Carriage Services’ acquisition of a large Central Florida Death Care operation.   The size of the acquisition made me wonder if the large national consolidators like Carriage Services, Service Corporation International, Foundation Partners Group, and Park Lawn Corporation have set their sights on the “Big Operators” and have less and less interest in smaller 300-500 call facilities.

Secondly, Real Clear Investigations wrote a recent two-part series on America’s demographic movement with the parts titled “Exodus:   Affordability crisis sends Americans packing from big cities” and “Revival:  Americans heading back to the Hinterlands“.   I’ve been on top of this issue, but yet the articles were fascinating to me.

It points to a new wave of movement in America. . . from the big cities to the smaller towns.

The Migration is now to areas outside of America’s Urban centers

Okay — let’s get to the demographics of a funeral home.  For over a hundred years every little community in America has had a local funeral home. . . . and ethnic areas of large cities have also had their “local” establishment.  Those funeral homes were generally operated by a single proprietor who made his living taking care of his community.  Unless the community grew, funeral home growth was non-existent.  And, for over a hundred years, America has had a demographic movement from the rural areas to the city making many of these communities smaller.   So, more than likely, especially with the advent of lower-cost cremation, over time many of these small community based funeral homes became branches of larger community firms out of necessity.

And, as property became expensive in major metropolitan areas funeral homes located within the city sold their property for more value than they could get out of running the business so funeral homes left the big cities too.  Here’s a somewhat dated article (2016) about funeral homes leaving the San Francisco city limits.  According to the article, San Francisco had 43 funeral homes in 1970, but as of the article date was down to less than a dozen.

In today’s migration of citizens, the larger a city is, the more apt people are to move from there.

Knowing where the people are, and are going to be, is now becoming as important to a funeral business as being a Death Care facility that is recognized and known.  There are plenty of funeral homes that thought their neighborhoods or communities would never change.  Many of those funeral homes have seen their clientele move to other areas and are now struggling to survive.

Other funeral homes foresaw the move to the suburbs in the last quarter of the 20th century and built chapels in communities that were very young and without a funeral home.  Those that had that foresight are reaping the benefits today.

I think that is important to note in today’s world.  There are always opportunities.  If the big national operators only want 1,000 call firms there are smaller national and even regional operators who will look to acquire those somewhat smaller, but still large, firms.  And, you can follow the numbers down to the very small communities where a loss of retirement citizens to more regional cities might allow for a perfect opportunity for a neighboring funeral home to purchase that community’s funeral home and operate it as a satellite location.  In essence, the opportunities are endless for those that want to grow.

However, you need to know how and where the populations are shifting and migrating to make the right decisions. . .  which includes the right price of acquisition.  Are today’s Death Care providers positioned for this move?  Is your funeral business positioned for this move?

Famous American bank robber Willie Sutton said he robbed banks because “That’s where the money is”.  I can’t help but think if you want to operate a profitable funeral home, you need to be located “Where the people are”.

Related Article — Exodus:  Affordability crisis send Americans packing from big cities.  Real Clear Investigations (Sept 9, 2025)

Related Article — Revival:  Americans heading back to the hinterlands.  Real Clear Investigations (Sept 11, 2025)

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I never know what will catch my eye as I peruse articles that I believe may contain information that will be helpful to the business operators of funeral homes, crematories, preneed agencies, and cemeteries.  Just the other day I was reading this article from the Cedar Rapids (IA) Gazette which included comments that contained this statement, “The industry has changed. . . .It’s now over 75% female”.

That statement was about funeral directors and was made by Mortuary Lift Company CEO Katie Hill.  The Gazette business article was about the Mortuary Lift Company, its history, products, and base of operations in the Cedar Rapids area.  It was interesting to me that Hill, a one-time working 4th-generation funeral director, realized back in the 1980’s that the position of funeral director brought a lot of lifting with it.

Hill’s realization of the lifting aspect of being a funeral director led her to purchasing a “mechanical lift” company in 1987.   Eventually she moved that company to Cedar Rapids where they are busy not only building ceiling attached lifts for the funeral profession but other products as well. . . . You can read more about the company in the linked article.

Here’s a couple of Hill’s quotes from the article:

• “Now they (funeral homes) are worried about workman’s comp. Nobody is lifting bodies by hand anymore.”

• “We sell internationally,” although tariffs have cost some recent orders.  People die all over the globe, and I’m the only one making lifting equipment for the funeral home.”

• “Orders are designed to fit the customer’s space, with costs running $15,000 to $20,000.  It’s probably the cost of one back surgery, and they’re aware of that.” 

• “We have a terrific product. There’s no built-in obsolescence. We don’t have any warranty issues, because we build a quality product. I stand behind it, and it’s a small industry. If they have an issue, they talk to me.”

Here’s the website for the Mortuary Lift Company.

Funeral Director Daily:  This is another great American success story built out of an idea to improve the work of an individual.  There are hundreds, or more than likely thousands, of those stories in the annals of American business success.  Hill’s thought process of “I realized pretty quickly that I could not lift a dead body, and there’s a lot of lifting of dead bodies,” when she became a funeral director led to this success.

And now, as you can see if you look to the company website, there are other products for funeral homes and the general population as well.

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Are we living in the age of Debt, Demographics, and Disruption?  And, if we are, are there parallels from life and investing that might also move into the Death Care realm?

I heard the phrase “Debt, Demographics, and Disruption” when I sat down to catch my breath on Wednesday afternoon after returning from an afternoon of working on the lawn at our lake cabin.  It was mid-afternoon and I heard it on the Claman Countdown on Fox Business Channel which is aired one hour prior to markets closing.

The phrase caught my attention because of the word “Demographics” and how I always relate America’s changing demographics with how it will affect the Death Care business.  Turns out the Claman Countdown was interviewing Mike Smith, an investment advisor  with Allspring Global and he mentioned that we were living in a world of Debt, Demographics, and Disruption.  You can see a short video of his explanation and a printed transcript here from Yahoo Finance.

In any regard catching the phrase made me think, as I mentioned, in Death Care terms and here’s some thoughts I have on the phrase and how it relates to Death Care businesses.

Debt — I think it is good for businesses to be nimble  —  to be able to move their resources into categories that will build their businesses.  If you have too big a percentage of your revenue going into the expense category of “Debt or Interest” it is hard to be nimble because it is hard to stop making those payments.

Just yesterday we published an article that Great Britain’s Dignity Funeral Directors sold about 90 of their under-performing funeral homes and used the proceeds to reduce their debt.  On this side of the Atlantic Carriage Service has also been upfront to their stockholders, through their quarterly reports,  that part of their process going forward is to reduce the percentage of debt they are paying.  Paying it off early will make them more nimble.

Take a look at your debt service.  If there is a way to pay some off early, think about doing it. . . . It will give you more flexibility moving forward.

Demographics —  Mr. Smith talked about the aging of America in terms of how health care payments will be dealt with and who will benefit from the coming aging tsunami.

According to him, Baby Boomers start turning 80 next year and we will soon have 70 million of them.  That will be a boom for funeral homes and death care providers if. . . . . . . your locations are in the locations that these Baby Boomers live in and if the services you provide are what they are asking for.

Disruption —  Mr. Smith talked about Disruption in some of the same terms that others do. . . with the focus being on how Artificial Intelligence and technology moves forward in our lives.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

I’m pretty certain that there will be some disruption in Death Care. . . . . . What we don’t know is how disruptive things may become or if the disruption is minor over time and does not change the business of Death Care which would include disposition, ceremony, and memorialization that is usually lead by the traditional funeral homes.

There is already some movement away from those traditional retail funeral outlets and time will tell if it is a fad or a long-term social change.

In any regard a good column to end the weekend on. . . . As you’re mowing the yard or sitting at the lake this weekend you can ponder funeral service and how the 3D’s mentioned in this article will intersect with it.

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Back when I was a child there was a soap opera daily on television that carried the slogan, “Like sands through an hourglass, so go the Days of our Lives”.    I thought of that today when researching an article about demographic movements and how they may affect funeral homes in the future. . . .My thought process kind of went like an hourglass timer, the sand keeps moving slowly and we keep moving with our daily lives while things slowly change around us.

Before you know it, years go by and lots of things have changed. . . . and if our business does not change with those changes, what we do in that business may become obsolete.  It just happens. . . think of standard landline telephones — everybody had them, some started believing they could get by with only a cell phone.  Boom. . .does any home have a landline anymore?  They have just disappeared. . . .and I sense that happening with cable and satellite television reception — soon it will be all streaming.

You cannot afford to wake up and realize that all the American demographics have changed and they have changed to a point that there may not be a profitable critical mass of population in your area to give business to your funeral home in a profitable manner anymore.  There are trends you need to watch.

Again, things happen while we are going about our business and then –Boom!!!  Things have changed.  I woke up a couple of mornings ago and realized that the state of New York no longer has the most finance jobs in America.   They have now been overtaken by Texas in that capacity.  You can read for yourself in this recent article from Yahoo Finance.

Since the pandemic we have heard about Texas gaining jobs and states like California and New York losing jobs and their business climates suffering. . . and we saw the trickle. . but now — Boom! — It has happened.

It’s not the first time something like this has happened. . . .Homes and businesses started putting air conditioning in their buildings starting in the 1950’s and that lead to a 5-decade surge in population and growth in the south and southwest.  Now, the South and Southwest have very populated states and one city, Atlanta, has the busiest airport overtaking New York and Chicago— could that have happened without air conditioning?  That’s just one example of things changing due to the demographics and population changing.  Here’s a couple articles on that movement happening:

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Demographic change is happening all around us right now, too.  America is becoming more urban, more diverse, and there is a movement from what are seen as higher tax states to lower tax states.  One of the unique ways that this “inter-state” movement is quantified is by how often U-Haul trailers leave “under load” from one state to another.  Here’s an article on that which shows that Texas, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee are the most desired destinations.  “Loaded trailers” leave the most often from these five states — California, Massachusetts, Illinois, New Jersey, and Michigan.

Demographic change is also happening in the rural and urban environment.  On a whole in the last 40-some years America has become more urbanized with approximetely 82.7% of our population living in urban/suburban areas in 2020 as compared to 73.7% living in urban/suburban areas in 1980.  That percentage of the population equates to over 100 million more people living in urban/suburban areas over that 40 years.

Rural population has not only decreased percentage wise from 26.3% of the population in 1980 to about 17.3 percent of the population in 2020, but in raw numbers of population.  Even with a total growth of population in the country, there’s about 2 million less people living in a rural area in 2020 than in 1980.

So, why does this relate to funeral homes and funeral business.  If you are in a state that is losing people or you are in a rural area, growth in an organic way, may be difficult to find.  If you find yourself in this situation and enjoy what you are doing and plan to do so for some time, I might suggest looking at an acquisition or more to help with the raw death call numbers and grow to an efficient economy of scale.

On the other hand, if you are in a growing state and/or urban/suburban market you certainly could look at acquisitions or you might decide to not spend on acqusition costs if you believe that you can “draw” new clientele to your facility through marketing or through an additional location in your market.

My main goal with this article is not to give a definitive “one size fits all” panacea for demographic change, it is to make you aware that even though these types of change do happen ever-so-slowly over time, you should, none-the-less,  have a plan to address whichever situation you find your business and its demographic changes in.

Related — Nation’s Urban and Rural populations shift following 2020 Census.  United States Census

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