Statistics on People Who Die Alone at Home: How Many, How Long Until Found, and Who Finds Them

In 2025, 76,941 people in Japan who lived alone died at home and were handled by police, 37.6% of 204,562 police-handled bodies, up from 76,020 in 2024.

Japan is the only country that counts every person living alone who dies at home, because its police handle those deaths. South Korea counts lonely deaths under a law of its own, Sweden counts people found a week or a month after death, and most other countries count nothing at all: there the nearest numbers are death certificates with no cause and funerals that no relative arranged. The figures below are the largest verified counts in each place; the section on comparing countries explains why they cannot be added up or ranked.

• Of the 76,941 people who died alone at home in Japan in 2025, 58,919 (76.6%) were aged 65 or over.
• About 3 in 10 deaths at home in Japan in 2025 (30.1%) were people who lived alone and whose bodies were handled by police: 76,941 of 255,816 home deaths (National Police Agency; Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2026).
• Roughly 1 in 21 of all deaths in Japan in 2025 (4.8%) was a person living alone who died at home and was handled by police (76,941 of 1,589,533 deaths) (National Police Agency; Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2026).
• Japan's Cabinet Office estimate of 'isolated deaths' rose to 22,222 in 2025 (from 21,856 in 2024): people living alone found 8 or more days after dying at home, 17,620 men, 4,598 women and 4 whose gender was not recorded.
• 1.4% of all deaths in Japan in 2025 (22,222 of 1,589,533, about 1 in 72) were isolated deaths by the Cabinet Office's 8-day estimate (Cabinet Office of Japan; Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2026).
• 32,678 people living alone in Japan were found 4 or more days after dying at home in 2025 (25,079 men, 7,595 women and 4 whose gender was not recorded), the Cabinet Office's reference figure alongside its 8-day isolated-death estimate of 22,222 (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2026).
• South Korea's lonely deaths rose 7.2% to 3,924 in 2024 (from 3,661 in 2023), 1.09% of all deaths and 7.7 per 100,000 population.
• About 11 lonely deaths a day were recorded in South Korea in 2024 (3,924 in the year, 10.7 a day) (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025; derived).
• 6.9% of the 57,145 unexplained-death scene investigations by South Korean police in 2024 (3,924) were classified as lonely deaths (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025; derived).
• In 2024, 897 people in Sweden were found dead in their homes a week or more after they died, down from a peak of 941 in 2023 (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2025).
• At least 1 in 5 people who died at home in two German cities had died alone and was found only the next day or later: 18.7% of home deaths in Aachen and 23.2% in Gelsenkirchen on average over 2006-2016 (Loke, 2023).
• About 1 in 20 of all deaths in two German cities was an undiscovered death at home: 4.3% in Aachen and 5.3% in Gelsenkirchen on average over 2006-2016, peaking at 7.4% in Gelsenkirchen in 2016 (Loke, 2023).
• 3,434 adults in two German cities died alone at home and were not found until the next day or later over 2006-2016 (Aachen 1,423; Gelsenkirchen 2,011), identified in a full survey of about 71,000 death notifications (Loke, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum dissertation, 2023).
• 5.0% of all deaths at home in the German city of Münster in 2017 (29 of 576) were 'lonely deaths' in which the body was found showing signs of decomposition (Dasch et al., Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, 2025).
• In 2025, 6,013 deaths in Germany were coded R98, 'found dead, cause of death undetermined', 0.60% of all 1,006,588 deaths (Destatis, 2026).
• 1,231 deaths of England and Wales residents registered in 2025 had 'other ill-defined and unspecified causes' (ICD-10 R99) as the underlying cause, the code used for bodies too decomposed to diagnose as well as other unknown causes: 848 men and 383 women (Office for National Statistics).
• In Amsterdam, bodies lying unnoticed at home for two weeks or more occurred at 5.3 per 100,000 person-years (379 cases) versus 1.4 per 100,000 in surrounding municipalities (58 cases); all but three of the 437 people lived alone, and among people living alone the rate was 2.7 times higher in the city.
• 417 people aged 65+ who lived alone were found dead at home in Spain's Valencian Community over 2015-2017: 159 in 2015, 135 in 2016 and 123 in 2017 (Esteve-Esteve et al., Revista Española de Salud Pública, 2021).
• 262 people aged over 65 died alone at home in 2024 in the Portuguese cities and towns policed by the PSP (PSP data via Lusa, 2025).
• In 2025, 54,797 people who lived alone died in the Netherlands, 31.6% of all 173,494 deaths, up from 41,722 in 2011 (Statistics Netherlands, 2026).
• 47,842 people aged 65 and over who lived alone died in the Netherlands in 2025, 31.3% of all 152,847 deaths at 65+ (Statistics Netherlands, 2026).
• In 2024, 76,020 people in Japan who lived alone died at home and were handled by police, 37.2% of all 204,184 police-handled bodies that year (first full-year national count).
• Of the 76,020 people who died alone at home in Japan in 2024, 58,044 (76.4%) were aged 65 or over.
• Japan's Cabinet Office estimates 21,856 'isolated deaths' (孤立死) in 2024, people living alone who died at home and were found 8 or more days after death (men 17,364; women 4,466).
• As a reference figure, 31,843 people living alone in Japan were found 4 or more days after dying at home in 2024, the point at which the Cabinet Office notes visible decomposition typically begins.
• In January-June 2025, 40,913 people living alone died at home in Japan (36.8% of 111,036 police-handled bodies); 31,525 were aged 65+ (provisional).
• In January-June 2024, 37,227 people living alone died at home in Japan (36.2% of 102,965 police-handled bodies); 28,330 were aged 65+ (provisional).
• 12.9% of all deaths in Japan in 2025, about 1 in 8, were handled by police (204,562 bodies; 1,589,533 deaths) (National Police Agency; Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2026).

By region and city

• 10,678 people who lived alone died at home in Tokyo in 2025 (7,932 aged 65+), the most of any Japanese prefecture; the top five were Tokyo 10,678; Osaka 6,258; Kanagawa 5,538; Aichi 4,448; Saitama 4,445, together 40.8% of the national 76,941 (National Police Agency of Japan, 2026).
• 10,678 people who lived alone died at home in Tokyo (Metropolitan Police Department area) in 2025 and were handled by police, 42.4% of the 25,190 bodies Tokyo police handled; 7,932 were aged 65+ (National Police Agency of Japan, 2026).
• 10,372 people who lived alone died at home in Tokyo (Metropolitan Police Department area) in 2024 and were handled by police, 40.4% of the 25,667 bodies Tokyo police handled; 7,699 were aged 65+ (National Police Agency of Japan, 2025).
• Between 24.1% (Tottori) and 49.9% (Aichi) of the bodies handled by police in each of Japan's 47 prefectures in 2025 were people living alone who died at home (national 37.6%; Tokyo 42.4%) (National Police Agency of Japan, 2026).
• 46,313 people living alone died at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2016-2023 and were examined by the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office (any age, cause or interval); 69.8% were men, with a median age of 70 for men and 80 for women (Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• 894 of South Korea's 3,924 lonely deaths in 2024 occurred in Gyeonggi Province (22.8%), 784 in Seoul (20.0%) and 367 in Busan (9.4%), the three largest regional counts (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025).
• 9.8 lonely deaths per 100,000 people were recorded in Busan in 2021, the highest of South Korea's 17 regions, against a national average of 6.6; Daejeon (8.8), Incheon (8.5) and South Chungcheong (8.3) followed (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2022).
• 77 people in Stockholm County were found dead at home in 2025 a month or more after death, up from 60 in 2024, the largest increase of any Swedish county (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2026).
• 237 people aged over 65 died alone at home in 2023 in the Portuguese cities and towns policed by the PSP (PSP data via Lusa, 2025).
• 258 people aged over 65 died alone at home in 2022 in the Portuguese cities and towns policed by the PSP (PSP data via Lusa, 2025).
• 13 people in Teruel province who lived alone were found dead at home after dying unnoticed, part of a rise flagged by the provincial forensic institute (Fiscalía General del Estado annual report, 2019).
• 46 people in Berlin-Mitte were counted as having died alone ('einsam verstorben') in 2024, aged 38 to 91; with no relatives or means, they were buried by the district without a funeral service (Bezirksamt Mitte, 2024).

Sources: National Police Agency of Japan (2024, 2025, 2026); Cabinet Office, Japan (2025, 2026); Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (2022, 2025); Rättsmedicinalverket (2025, 2026); Susanne Loke, doctoral dissertation, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum; Deutsches Ärzteblatt International; Statistisches Bundesamt; Office for National Statistics; Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine; Revista Española de Salud Pública; Polícia de Segurança Pública; Statistics Netherlands; Journal of Epidemiology; Fiscalía General del Estado; Bezirksamt Mitte von Berlin

In 2025, 7,148 people who died alone at home in Japan (9.3%) were not found for a month or more.

Most people who die alone at home are found within a few days, usually by someone who expected to hear from them. The long tail is the story: weeks or months pass when no one is checking, and every country that measures it finds the same shape. Japan's police record the days between death and discovery in every case; elsewhere the figures come from forensic and coroners' files.

• 28,398 (36.9%) of the 76,941 people who lived alone and died at home in Japan in 2025 were found within a day of death; 15,865 (20.6%) in 2-3 days; 10,456 (13.6%) in 4-7 days; 7,570 (9.8%) in 8-14 days; 7,504 (9.8%) in 15-30 days; 5,195 (6.8%) in 31-90 days; 1,273 (1.7%) in 91-180 days; 472 (0.6%) in 181-365 days; 208 (0.3%) after a year or more (National Police Agency of Japan, 2026).
• 15,911 people aged 65+ who lived alone in Japan were found 8 or more days after dying at home in 2025, 27.0% of all 58,919 such deaths (National Police Agency of Japan, 2026).
• 4,699 people aged 65+ who lived alone in Japan (8.0%) were not found until 31 or more days after dying at home in 2025 (National Police Agency of Japan, 2026).
• 38.2% of people aged 65+ who lived alone and died at home in Japan in 2025 (22,502 of 58,919) were found within one day of death (National Police Agency of Japan, 2026).
• In Tokyo's 23 wards in 2021, 41.8% of men and 26.2% of women who lived alone and died at home (ME-examined cases) were found 8 or more days after death; only 14.9% of men and 24.1% of women were found within a day, versus about 81% of people who lived with others.
• 5 days was the median interval between death and examination for men who died alone at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2016-2023 (interquartile range 2-16 days), versus 3 days for women (2-7 days) (Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• 295 of the 897 people found dead at home in Sweden in 2024 a week or more after death (32.9%) had lain dead 7-13 days; 231 (25.8%) 14-30 days, 117 (13.0%) 31-90 days, 26 (2.9%) 91-365 days and 1 more than a year, while 227 (25.3%) had only a month of death on record (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2025).
• 143 of the 309 people found dead at home in Sweden in 2025 at least a month after death had lain dead 31-90 days; 35 had lain dead 91-365 days and 1 more than a year, while 130 had only a month of death on record (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2026).
• 26.6 days was the mean time from death to discovery among 128 lonely deaths identified in 664 forensic autopsies in South Korea (2017-2021), ranging from 3 to 220 days; 62.5% (80) were found a week or more after death, after a mean 39.9 days (Na, Health and Social Welfare Review, 2023).
• 43.0% of 128 lonely deaths at forensic autopsy in South Korea (2017-2021) were found between one week and one month after death (55), 37.5% within a week (3 to 7 days; 48), 16.4% after one to six months (21) and 3.1% after six months or more (4) (Na, Health and Social Welfare Review, 2023).
• 47.4% of 1,423 people in Aachen (Germany) who died alone at home over 2006-2016 were found on day 1, 67.2% within 3 days, 81.2% within a week, 90.0% within 2 weeks, 96.1% within 4 weeks and 99.2% within 100 days; Gelsenkirchen's distribution was almost identical (Loke, 2023).
• Just under half (245 of 491) of people found dead at home and autopsied in Homburg (Germany) in 2014-2018 were found within 24 hours, just under 90% within two weeks, and 3 more than a year after death (Umstaetter, 2025).
• 41% of 88 people aged 65+ found decomposed after non-traumatic deaths at home in Trabzon, Turkey (2014-2023) had been dead 10 days or more: post-mortem interval 3-5 days in 22, 6-9 days in 30, 10-14 days in 24 and 15-30 days in 12 (Vural and Kalkan, BMC Geriatrics, 2026).
• 11.1 days on average (range 3-27) had passed since people aged 65+ found decomposed at home in Trabzon, Turkey, in 2014-2023 were last seen alive, among the 71 of 88 cases with this information (Vural and Kalkan, BMC Geriatrics, 2026).
• 8.5 days was the median time that people buried by the Gelsenkirchen (Germany) authorities after dying undiscovered at home had lain dead (58 cases with known lying time, March 2011 to January 2014; range 2-131 days); 78% were men and their mean age was 59.8 (Geser, Henke and Loke, 2014).
• 25.7% of 637 solitary deaths autopsied in Wakayama, Japan (164 cases) were found between 7 days and a month after death, the second of two peaks; the first peak was within a day of death (28.6%, 182 cases) (Hashizume et al., Legal Medicine, 2025).
• 45.5% of adults living alone whose deaths were investigated in Kyoto's largest forensic database in 2012-2015 were found more than a week after death (107 of 235) (Miyamori et al., BMC Public Health, 2022).
• 23.2% of suspected-unnatural deaths at home in Yokohama in 2013 that could be matched to ambulance records (349 of 1,503) were found 3 or more days after death, the authors' threshold for a 'solitary death' (Kakiuchi et al., Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 2019).
• Among 420 at-home deaths autopsied at Okayama University, 244 (58.1%) were found three or more days after death; delayed discovery was associated with being male, older, living alone, single, retired or not employed, and lacking long-term-care certification, while regular visits from relatives living elsewhere led to early detection.
• 49% of people aged 65+ living alone who died unexpectedly in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan, in 2002-2007 were found more than a day after death, while 87% of all 3,387 older unexpected deaths studied were found within a day (Ito et al., BMJ Open, 2012).
• 1.61 days was the median time to discovery for people aged 65-74 living alone who died unexpectedly in Yamagata Prefecture in 2002-2007, versus 0.99 day at 75-84 and 0.61 day at 85+ (Ito et al., BMJ Open, 2012).
• 4.2 days was the average interval between death and discovery for men among 582 forensic autopsy cases at the Osaka Medical Examiner's Office in 2010-2012, against 1.3 days for women (Morita et al., Prilozi, 2015).
• 4,849 days, about 13 years, was the longest interval between death and examination recorded for a woman who died alone at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2016-2023; the longest for a man was 4,429 days (Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• A review of 1,714 decomposition cases at the Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) Medical Examiner's Office over 2007-2016 found reported post-mortem intervals ranging from 1 to 2,920 days, with 'last known social contact' the main basis for the interval in 82% of US cases.
• Of the 76,020 people who died alone at home in Japan in 2024, 28,756 (37.8%) were found within a day; 15,421 (20.3%) in 2-3 days; 9,987 (13.1%) in 4-7 days; 7,515 (9.9%) in 8-14 days; 7,396 (9.7%) in 15-30 days; 5,138 (6.8%) in 31-90 days; 1,165 (1.5%) in 91-180 days; 389 (0.5%) in 181-365 days; 253 (0.3%) after a year or more.
• Of 58,044 people aged 65+ who lived alone and were found dead at home in Japan in 2024, 22,734 (39.2%) were found within one day of death, while 4,538 (7.8%) were not found for more than 30 days (National Police Agency of Japan, 2025).
• In 2024, 15,630 people aged 65+ who lived alone in Japan were found 8 or more days after dying at home, 26.9% of all such elderly deaths.
• In 2024, 4,538 people aged 65+ who lived alone in Japan (7.8%) were found a month or more after dying at home; across all ages the figure was 6,945 (9.1%).
• 6,945 people of all ages who lived alone in Japan (9.1%) were not found until 31 or more days after dying at home in 2024 (National Police Agency of Japan, 2025).
• 34.2% of people under 65 who lived alone and died at home in Japan in 2024 (6,093 of 17,818) were found 8 or more days after death, versus 26.9% of those aged 65+ (National Police Agency of Japan, 2025).

When the person is found alive

31% of the 387 times people living alone were found helpless or dead at home in San Francisco in 1993 (120 events) came after an estimated time incapacitated of more than 12 hours: 72 of 297 found alive and 48 of 90 found dead (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996; derived from Table 1).

• Among the 90 people found dead at home in the San Francisco study, paramedics estimated 29% had been down for more than 72 hours (median 18 hours), versus a median of 2 hours for those found alive, of whom 31% had been helpless under an hour.
• The median estimated time spent incapacitated was 4.5 hours across all events; 2 hours for those found alive and 18 hours for those found dead (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996; San Francisco, 1993).
• 10% of people found helpless or dead at home had been unable to summon help for more than three days, and only 38% of that group survived (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996; San Francisco, 1993).

Sources: National Police Agency of Japan (2025, 2026); Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Examiner's Office; Journal of Epidemiology; Rättsmedicinalverket (2025, 2026); Health and Social Welfare Review, Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs; Susanne Loke, doctoral dissertation, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum; Universitaet des Saarlandes, Institute of Legal Medicine Homburg; BMC Geriatrics; Ev. Fachhochschule Rheinland-Westfalen-Lippe, Bochum; Legal Medicine (2025, 2026); BMC Public Health; Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine; BMJ Open; Prilozi / Contributions, Section of Medical Sciences; Science & Justice; Hyogo Prefectural Government, Medical Examiner's Office; Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine; Japan Small Amount & Short Term Insurance Association, Lonely Death Countermeasures Committee; New England Journal of Medicine

52.6% of Japan's 22,222 estimated isolated deaths in 2025 (11,694) were men aged 60 to 79; men outnumbered women in every age band, and the two came close only at 85+ (956 men, 874 women) (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2026).

Lonely deaths are overwhelmingly men's deaths, and not only among the very old. In Japan most are men in their sixties and seventies, in South Korea men in their fifties and sixties, in Sweden and Germany men of every age. What they share is less an age than a set of circumstances: living alone, unmarried or divorced, often poor, often ill, and out of touch with family.

• 54.0% of South Korea's lonely deaths in 2024 (2,117 of 3,924) were men in their 50s or 60s: 1,089 men in their 60s (27.8%) and 1,028 in their 50s (26.2%) (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025; derived).
• 3,205 of South Korea's 3,924 lonely deaths in 2024 were men (81.7%), against 605 women (15.4%) and 114 whose gender was not recorded (2.9%) (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025).
• Men accounted for 84.1% of South Korea's lonely deaths in 2023 (3,053 of 3,632 with known gender), more than five times the number of women (579).
• 73.5% of the people found dead at home in Sweden in 2025 a month or more after death were men (227 of 309; 82 were women) (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2026).
• 73.7% of the people found dead at home in Sweden in 2024 a week or more after death were men (661 of 897; 236 were women) (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2025).
• Three quarters of the people found dead at home in Sweden in 2025 a week or more after death were men, and six in ten were older than 65 (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2026).
• About two thirds of people who died alone at home and were found late in two German cities were men (63.0% in Aachen, 64.7% in Gelsenkirchen, 2006-2016), and about three quarters (75.8%) of those found after 8+ days in Gelsenkirchen (Loke, 2023).
• 78% of people aged 60+ found decomposed at home and autopsied in South Australia in 2000-2004 and 2019-2023 were men (73 of 94), most of whom died of ischaemic heart disease (Byard, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 2025).
• 77.9% of people found 3 or more days after dying at home in Yokohama in 2013 were men (272 of 349), versus 59.9% of those found sooner (691 of 1,154) (Kakiuchi et al., Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 2019).
• 74% of 637 solitary deaths autopsied in Wakayama, Japan were men (471), with cases rising from age 40 in men and from age 60 in women (Hashizume et al., Legal Medicine, 2025).
• Of 88 decomposed bodies from non-traumatic in-home deaths of older people examined in Turkey, 85.2% had lived alone, 83.0% were men and the mean age was 70.9.
• 7.4% of men who died at home in Münster in 2017 (22 of 299) were found decomposed, about three times the share among women (2.5%, 7 of 277) (Dasch et al., Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, 2025).
• 2.40 times the odds of women: men aged 65+ who died at home in Spain's Valencian Community in 2015-2017 were more likely to be a solitary death, living alone and found dead (adjusted OR 2.40, 95% CI 1.87-3.06) (Esteve-Esteve et al., Revista Española de Salud Pública, 2021).
• About 3 times higher for men than women: age-standardised rates of 'undefined' deaths (ICD-10 R98/R99, a proxy for bodies too decomposed to establish a cause) in both working-age (20-59) and older (60+) groups in England and Wales, 1979-2020 (Hiam et al., Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2024).
• Men were 66.1% (3,975) of the 6,013 deaths in Germany coded R98 'found dead, cause undetermined' in 2025, and people aged 65+ were 63.5% (3,817) (Destatis, 2026).
• 60% of the 757 people aged over 65 who died alone at home in PSP-policed Portuguese cities in 2022-2024 were men (455), and 40% women (302) (PSP data via Lusa, 2025).
• 83.3% of tenants who died alone in insured rental homes in Japan were men (10,086 of 12,105), well above men's roughly 60% share of rental residents (insurer claims 2015-2025; Japan Small Amount & Short Term Insurance Association, 2025).
• About 1.3-1.6% of all male deaths in South Korea each year in 2017-2021 were lonely deaths, against 0.3-0.4% of female deaths; in 2021 men outnumbered women 5.3 to 1 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2022).
• 102.5 per 100,000 men in Tokyo's 23 wards died alone at home in 2023 and were examined by the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, up from 69.3 in 2016 (crude rate of solitary deaths; Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• 41.4 per 100,000 women in Tokyo's 23 wards died alone at home in 2023 and were examined by the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, up from 29.7 in 2016 (crude rate of solitary deaths; Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• About three times as many men as women were among 211 people found dead in private homes at least 24 hours after death and autopsied in Giessen (Germany) in 2005-2011; mean age at death was 50.1 for men and 57.8 for women (Merz et al., 2012).

Age

• 15,079 people aged 85 and over (19.6%) were the largest age band among the 76,941 people who died alone at home in Japan in 2025, followed by 75-79 (13,412), 80-84 (11,366), 70-74 (11,004) and 65-69 (8,058) (National Police Agency of Japan, 2026).
• The single largest age band among Japan's 76,020 solitary at-home deaths in 2024 was people aged 85 and over: 14,658.
• 17,860 of the 76,941 people who died alone at home in Japan in 2025 (23.2%) were under 65, including 13,693 aged 50-64 (National Police Agency of Japan, 2026).
• 6,178 (27.8%) of Japan's 22,222 estimated isolated deaths in 2025 were people under 65; an isolated death here is a person living alone found 8 or more days after dying at home (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2026).
• 4,277 of Japan's 21,856 isolated deaths in 2024 were people aged 70-74 (3,632 men, 645 women), the largest age band among people living alone found 8 or more days after dying at home (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2025).
• 32.4% of South Korea's lonely deaths in 2024 were people in their 60s (1,271), 30.5% in their 50s (1,197), 13.0% in their 40s (509), 12.7% in their 70s (497), 5.1% aged 80+ (202), 4.3% in their 30s (171) and 1.2% aged 29 or under (47) (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025).
• 50.2% of South Korea's lonely deaths in 2024 (1,970 of 3,924) were people aged 60 or over, and only 17.8% (699) were aged 70 or over (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025; derived).
• 16.6 lonely deaths per 100,000 people in their 60s were recorded in South Korea in 2024, the highest of any age group, ahead of people in their 50s (13.9), 70s (12.2) and 80+ (8.4); the all-age rate was 7.7 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025).
• 54.9% of lonely deaths in Seoul in 2020 were people aged 50 to 64 (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2021).
• 70.2% of the people found dead at home in Sweden in 2025 a month or more after death were older than 65 (217 of 309; 92 were 65 or younger) (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2026).
• 66.0% of the people found dead at home in Sweden in 2024 a week or more after death were older than 65 (592 of 897; 305 were 65 or younger) (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2025).
• 49.2% of people in Gelsenkirchen and 46% in Aachen (Germany) who died alone at home and were found late were aged 65 or younger (median age 66 and 67), far younger than the general dying population (Loke, 2023).
• 553 of the 1,231 R99 deaths of England and Wales residents in 2025 (44.9%) were people aged 40-64, more than the 470 (38.2%) aged 65 or over, so this closest official proxy for bodies found too decomposed to diagnose is concentrated in middle age rather than among the oldest (Office for National Statistics, derived from Nomis).
• 11.8% of people under 60 who died at home in Münster in 2017 (11 of 93) were found decomposed, versus 3.7% of those aged 60 or over (18 of 483) (Dasch et al., Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, 2025).
• 46.1% of tenants who died alone in insured rental homes in Japan were under 65 (5,574 of 12,089), and the average age at death was 63.6 (insurer claims 2015-2025; Japan Small Amount & Short Term Insurance Association, 2025).
• 25% of kodokushi cases in Tokyo in 2016, people living alone who died at home, were under 60 (Toyama and Poudyal, SN Social Sciences, 2021).

Living alone, family and marriage

• 2,176 people who lived alone and died at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2021 were found 8 or more days after death (37.2% of 5,851), versus 55 people who lived with others (1.9% of 2,840) (Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, 2024).
• 32 people who lived with family in Osaka City were still found 4 or more days after dying at home in 2025 (Osaka Medical Examiner's Office cases), against 1,624 people who lived alone (Osaka Prefecture, 2026).
• 3.73 was the adjusted hazard ratio for being found later after an unexpected death among people aged 65+ living alone versus those living with family in Yamagata Prefecture (2002-2007), the strongest predictor studied; median time to discovery was 1.00 day versus 0.08 day (Ito et al., BMJ Open, 2012).
• About 19% of people aged 65+ who lived with family and were found dead or critically ill at home (forensic autopsies, Kyoto, 2009-2013) had gone more than three days before anyone found them, up from about 7% in 1989-1993 (Nomura et al., Science & Justice, 2016).
• About 7% of people aged 65+ who lived with family and were found dead or critically ill at home (forensic autopsies, Kyoto, 1989-1993) had gone more than three days before anyone found them (Nomura et al., Science & Justice, 2016).
• 23% of people found 3 or more days after dying at home in Okayama University forensic autopsy cases (56 of 244) lived with family or acquaintances rather than alone (Yamasaki et al., Legal Medicine, 2026).
• 100% of the markedly decomposed bodies of people who died at home in a central London coronial autopsy series had lived alone, as reported by Estrin-Serlui and Osborn and quoted by Hiam et al. (J R Soc Med, 2024).
• In eastern Attica (Greece), 217 decomposing bodies were found indoors over 2012-2021; the typical case was a Greek man over 65, single, childless and living alone, found by relatives or neighbours within a month of death, with a natural cause.
• 3.05 times the odds of being found 3 or more days after death: never-married people who died at home in Yokohama in 2013, compared with married, divorced or widowed people (95% CI 2.27-4.10); men had 1.80 times and people with liver disease 2.48 times the odds (Kakiuchi et al., Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 2019).
• 29.25 times the odds of married people: divorced people aged 65+ who died at home in Spain's Valencian Community in 2015-2017 were more likely to be a solitary death (never married 23.23; widowed 7.14) (Esteve-Esteve et al., Revista Española de Salud Pública, 2021).
• 83% of men in Gelsenkirchen (Germany) found 8 or more days after dying alone at home were single (50%) or divorced/separated (33%); only 8% were widowed and 7% married (Loke, 2023).
• About 60% of men and 40% of women who died alone at home and were found late in Aachen (Germany) had no children, far above general-population childlessness (Loke, 2023).
• 7.4% of US decedents aged 51 and over (2002-2015) had no spouse, partner or children at the end of life, and these kinless decedents were more likely to have lived alone (Plick et al., J Am Geriatr Soc, 2021).
• 27% of US adults over 50 were socially isolated in their last 3 months of life, versus 18% four years before death (adjusted prevalence, Health and Retirement Study 2006-2016) (Kotwal et al., J Am Geriatr Soc, 2021).
• About 19% of US adults over 50 experienced social isolation in their last 4 years of life, 18% frequent loneliness and 5% both (Kotwal et al., J Am Geriatr Soc, 2021).

Poverty, illness and alcohol

• 14.2 times the adjusted odds of a lonely death: people in Korea's lowest income group (Medical Aid recipients) compared with the highest income group, in a national case-control study of all 3,122 lonely deaths in 2021 (aOR 14.19, 95% CI 12.00-16.77) (Koo et al., Journal of Korean Medical Science, 2025).
• 30.8% of South Korea's lonely deaths in 2021 were Medical Aid recipients, against 4.0% of matched controls, and 54.5% were in the lowest income group, against 19.2% (Koo et al., Journal of Korean Medical Science, 2025).
• 30.8% of the 3,122 people who died lonely deaths in Korea in 2021 were Medical Aid recipients, a group that makes up only 2.9% of the population (Bai et al., Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, 2025).
• 39.1% of South Korea's identifiable lonely deaths in 2024 (1,462) had received basic livelihood security benefits in the year before death, a share that has stayed near 40% since 2020 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025).
• 86.3% of South Korea's identifiable lonely deaths in 2021 had a history of receiving some social security support, including 44.3% who were basic livelihood recipients (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2023).
• 19.6% of people who died a lonely death in Korea in 2021 had a diagnosed mental or behavioural disorder due to alcohol, against 1.5% of matched controls (adjusted OR 5.48) (Koo et al., Journal of Korean Medical Science, 2025).
• 32.7% of people who died a lonely death in Korea in 2021 had been diagnosed with a mood disorder in the previous five years, against 13.3% of matched controls (Koo et al., Journal of Korean Medical Science, 2025).
• 20.1% of South Korea's identifiable lonely deaths in 2021 had a history of hypertension, 18.0% diabetes, 12.3% alcohol-related disorders and 11.1% a severe illness such as cancer, stroke or heart disease (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2023).
• 61.8% of people living alone with alcohol abuse whose deaths were investigated in Kyoto in 2012-2015 lay undiscovered for more than a week (42 of 68), versus 38.9% of those without (65 of 167); adjusted proportion ratio 1.50 (Miyamori et al., BMC Public Health, 2022).
• 79.3% of men (2,209 of 2,785) and 89.5% of women (1,062 of 1,187) who died alone at home of disease in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2015 were not employed (Kanawaku and Ohno, Journal of Nippon Medical School, 2020).
• 3 to 8 days was the median interval between death and examination for non-employed people who died alone at home of disease in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2015 (by age and gender group), 1 to 5 days longer than for employed people; some were found after more than 100 days (Kanawaku and Ohno, Journal of Nippon Medical School, 2020).
• 61% of 138 people who died in hoarding environments and were investigated by the Cook County (Chicago) Medical Examiner in 2017-2018 were found decomposed; 86% had lived alone (Waters et al., American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 2022).

Suicide and natural causes

• 90.9% of the people found dead at home in Sweden in 2025 a month or more after death died of natural causes (281 of 309); 28 deaths were accidents or suicides (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2026).
• 7.9% of the 9,074 deaths of people living alone examined by Tokyo's Medical Examiner's Office in 2024 were suicides (717); 62.6% were illness or natural causes (5,677, two-thirds of them circulatory disease) and 29.5% accidents or undetermined causes (2,680) (Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, 2026).
• 13.4% of South Korea's lonely deaths in 2024 were suicides (526 of 3,924), down from 14.1% (516) in 2023 and 19.2% (463 of 2,412) in 2017 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2024 and 2025).
• 57.4% of lonely deaths of people aged 29 or under in South Korea in 2024 were suicides, falling with age to 43.3% in their 30s, 25.7% in their 40s, 13.5% in their 50s, 8.3% in their 60s, 3.8% in their 70s and 2.0% at 80+ (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025).
• 61.4% more non-suicide lonely deaths were recorded in South Korea in 2023 than in 2017 (3,145 against 1,949) (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2024; derived).
• 8.3% of tenants who died alone in insured rental homes in Japan died by suicide (1,005 of 12,105), versus about 1.2% of all deaths nationally; 57.1% died of illness and 33.7% of undetermined causes (insurer claims 2015-2025; Japan Small Amount & Short Term Insurance Association, 2025).
• 8% of undiscovered deaths at home in Aachen and 6% in Gelsenkirchen (2006-2016) were recorded suicides, up to ten times the share among all deaths in Germany (under 1%) (Loke, 2023).
• 652 of the 20,320 suicides recorded in Japan in 2024 listed loneliness as a cause or motive, one reason the Cabinet Office keeps suicides inside its isolated-death count (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2025).

Housing

• 48.9% of South Korea's lonely deaths in 2024 occurred in houses (detached, multi-household or villa; 1,920), 19.7% in apartments (774), 19.6% in studio flats or officetels (769), 4.8% in gosiwon (189) and 4.2% in motels or inns (163) (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025).
• 4.8% of South Korea's lonely deaths in 2024 occurred in gosiwon (tiny rented rooms), up from 1.9% in 2020, and 4.2% in motels or inns, up from 1.9% (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025).
• 81.5% of people aged 65+ who lived alone and whose deaths were examined by Tokyo's Medical Examiner's Office in 2024 died at home (5,302 of 6,503); 14.3% died in hospital (Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, 2026).
• 348 'isolated deaths' were recorded in public housing in Aichi Prefecture in FY2009-2011, about one per 2,000 units a year; 32% (111) of those who died were under 65, and neighbours were the most common discoverers (48% of cases with a recorded discoverer) (MIC Chubu Regional Bureau, 2012).
• 220 single residents of Urban Renaissance Agency (UR) rental housing in Japan were found more than a week after death in FY2012 (157 aged 65+), excluding suicides and homicides, about 40% more than in FY2008 overall and about 80% more among those aged 65+ (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2014).
• 154 single residents of Urban Renaissance Agency (UR) rental housing in Japan were found more than a week after death in FY2008 (89 aged 65+), excluding suicides and homicides (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2014).

Heatwaves

• 56% of the 619 people who died of heat in British Columbia in summer 2021 (347) lived alone; 30% lived with a spouse or family (BC Coroners Service, 2022).
• In 98% of British Columbia's 619 heat deaths in summer 2021, the heat injury occurred indoors in a residence (BC Coroners Service, 2022).
• 67% (415) of the 619 people who died of heat in British Columbia in summer 2021 were aged 70 or older (BC Coroners Service, 2022).
• At least 48 of the 68 stably housed people who died of heat in Multnomah County (Portland, Oregon) in 2021 lived alone (71%) (Multnomah County Health Department, 2022).
• 68 of the 72 people who died of heat in Multnomah County in 2021 (94%) died in their own residence (Multnomah County Health Department, 2022).
• 69% of the people who died at home or in the community from probable heat-related causes in Montreal's 2018 heat wave (38 of 55) lived alone, and none had working air conditioning (Montreal Regional Public Health Department, 2019).
• People who lived alone had 2.3 times the odds of heat-related death in the July 1995 Chicago heat wave (multivariate odds ratio), one of the two strongest risk factors alongside being confined to bed (Semenza et al., NEJM, 1996).
• People who did not leave home each day had 6.7 times the odds of heat-related death in the 1995 Chicago heat wave (univariate analysis) (Semenza et al., NEJM, 1996).
• 2.34 times the odds in summer as in spring: deaths at home of people aged 65+ in Spain's Valencian Community in 2015-2017 were more likely to be solitary deaths (living alone, found dead) in summer, with winter at 1.93 and autumn at 1.82 (Esteve-Esteve et al., Revista Española de Salud Pública, 2021).

Sources: Cabinet Office of Japan (2014, 2025, 2026); Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (2022, 2024, 2025); Rättsmedicinalverket (2025, 2026); Susanne Loke, doctoral dissertation, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum; Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine; Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine; Legal Medicine (2025, 2026); BMC Geriatrics; Deutsches Ärzteblatt International; Revista Española de Salud Pública; Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine; Statistisches Bundesamt; Polícia de Segurança Pública; Japan Small Amount & Short Term Insurance Association, Lonely Death Countermeasures Committee; Journal of Epidemiology; Archiv fuer Kriminologie; National Police Agency of Japan (2025, 2026); Seoul Metropolitan Government; Office for National Statistics; SN Social Sciences; Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Examiner's Office (2024, 2026); Osaka Prefectural Government, Medical Examiner's Office; BMJ Open; Science & Justice; Forensic Science International; Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (2021); Journal of Korean Medical Science (2025); Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health; Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea, with other ministries; BMC Public Health; Journal of Nippon Medical School; American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology; Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Chubu Regional Administrative Evaluation Bureau; BC Coroners Service; Multnomah County Health Department; Direction régionale de santé publique de Montréal; New England Journal of Medicine

30.0% of the 5,302 people aged 65+ who lived alone and died at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2024 were found by family; health and welfare workers found 18.3%, neighbours 16.8%, building managers 14.0%, acquaintances 12.3% and delivery workers 4.1% (Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, 2026).

The person who finds a body is usually the person who noticed something was wrong: a relative who could not get through, a care worker at the door, a neighbour, a building manager, a courier. The share found by family is falling in both Japan and South Korea, and the longer it is before anyone looks, the more often the alarm is a smell or unpaid rent.

• 2,377 (26.2%) of the 9,074 people who lived alone and whose deaths were examined by Tokyo's Medical Examiner's Office in 2024 were found by family; health and welfare workers found 1,676, acquaintances 1,507, neighbours 1,234, building managers 1,056, passers-by 456 and delivery workers 256 (Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, 2026).
• 43.1% of South Korea's lonely deaths in 2024 were first found by landlords, security guards, building managers or couriers, up from 28.4% in 2020, while the share found by family fell from 34.8% to 26.6% and by friends or acquaintances from 14.5% to 7.1% (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025).
• In South Korea in 2024, lonely-death bodies were most often found by a landlord, security guard or building manager (43.1%), then family (26.6%), neighbours (12.0%) and health/welfare workers (7.7%); in 2023 the shares were 34.5%, 26.2%, 19.3% and 7.0%.
• 159 of South Korea's 3,378 lonely deaths in 2021 (4.7%) were first found by delivery couriers, up from 81 (3.4%) in 2017; siblings (758, 22.4%) and landlords (740, 21.9%) were the most common first finders (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2022).
• About 2 weeks on average passed before people living alone with no one checking on them were found, typically because of an odour or unpaid rent, versus 3 days when family, friends, colleagues or carers found them and 7 days when piled-up newspapers raised the alarm (Osaka, 2010-2012; Morita et al., Prilozi, 2015).
• 50.9% of 128 lonely deaths at forensic autopsy in South Korea (65) were found by neighbours reporting a smell or by building managers and landlords collecting fees or rent, after a mean 29.7 days, against a mean 17.6 days when family found the body (Na, Health and Social Welfare Review, 2023).
• 51% of people aged 65+ living alone who died unexpectedly in Yamagata Prefecture in 2002-2007 were found by someone outside their family (337 of 659), against 17% of older people who lived with family (466 of 2,728) (Ito et al., BMJ Open, 2012).
• 33.4% of people who lived alone and died at home in Kobe in 2023 (281 of 841) were found by family or relatives; neighbours found 15.1%, care workers and home helpers 9.9%, building managers 9.8% and delivery workers 4.2% (Hyogo Medical Examiner's Office, 2024).
• 33.6% of tenants who died alone in insured rental homes in Japan were found by relatives, friends or acquaintances; 50.4% were found by people dealing with them through work (property managers and landlords 23.6%, welfare, watch-over and delivery services 20.4%, police 6.4%) (insurer claims 2015-2025, n=10,203; Japan Small Amount & Short Term Insurance Association, 2025).
• 135 of 491 people found dead at home and autopsied in Homburg (Germany) in 2014-2018 were found because they were missed or could not be reached; 52 were noticed because of a smell, 19 because of an overflowing mailbox and 3 because shutters did not move (Umstaetter, 2025).
• 195 of 491 people found dead at home and autopsied in Homburg (Germany) in 2014-2018 were found by a family member or partner; police found 91 and the fire brigade 82, with friends, colleagues, carers, caretakers and landlords finding fewer (Umstaetter, 2025).
• Only 11% of people found helpless or dead at home in the San Francisco study were found by family; carers, visiting nurses and home aides (76), friends (41), neighbours (36) and landlords (3) found most others, and calls from landlords were linked to the longest time down (median >72 hours).
• 50% of the 619 people who died of heat in British Columbia in summer 2021 (308) were found during a wellness check by family, friends, support or health workers or police; 32% were found during routine contact (BC Coroners Service, 2022).
• 68% of indoor heat-related deaths in Maricopa County, Arizona, in 2024 were discovered during a welfare check (Maricopa County Department of Public Health, 2025).
• 48% of indoor heat-related deaths in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona, in 2025 (53 of 111) were discovered during a welfare check by a neighbour, family member or emergency medical services (Maricopa County Department of Public Health, 2026).
• 62 older people were found dead inside their homes by Madrid city firefighters during 605 door openings between 11 March and 11 May 2020, versus 27 in the same period of 2019 (Madrid City Council, 2020).
• 69.9% of the 196 deaths at home in Münster in 2017 that an emergency physician attended (34.0% of all 576 home deaths) were people already dead when the physician arrived (Dasch et al., Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, 2025).
• Dutch police ask the Netherlands Forensic Institute two to three times a week, on average, to identify by DNA a person found dead with no crime suspected, most often someone who died alone and unnoticed (NFI, undated).
• Almost 70% of the NFI's DNA identifications of people found dead without suspicion of a crime come from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague (NFI, undated).

Sources: Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Examiner's Office (2003, 2013, 2026); Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (2022, 2025); Prilozi / Contributions, Section of Medical Sciences; Health and Social Welfare Review, Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs; BMJ Open; Hyogo Prefectural Government, Medical Examiner's Office; Japan Small Amount & Short Term Insurance Association, Lonely Death Countermeasures Committee; Universitaet des Saarlandes, Institute of Legal Medicine Homburg; New England Journal of Medicine; BC Coroners Service; Maricopa County Department of Public Health (2025, 2026); Ayuntamiento de Madrid; Deutsches Ärzteblatt International; Netherlands Forensic Institute, Ministry of Justice and Security

5,302 people aged 65+ who lived alone died at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2024, 3.7 times the 1,451 recorded in 2003 (deaths handled by the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office; Cabinet Office of Japan, 2026).

Every long series points the same way. Counts of older people dying alone at home have risen year after year in Tokyo and Osaka, South Korea's national count has climbed since it began, and the share found late has grown in Kyoto and Tokyo. In Europe, the closest proxies, death certificates with no cause and forensic caseloads of decomposed bodies, have risen too. The pandemic made it worse for a while; the number of older people living alone makes it likely to keep rising.

• 63% more lonely deaths were recorded in South Korea in 2024 than in 2017 (3,924 against 2,412), and the rate rose from 4.7 to 7.7 per 100,000 people (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2022 and 2025; derived).
• The number of people found dead at home in Sweden a month or more after death rose 57.7% between 2020 and 2025, from 196 to 309 (Rättsmedicinalverket, 2026).
• 1,624 people who lived alone in Osaka City were found 4 or more days after dying at home in 2025 (lonely deaths handled by the Osaka Medical Examiner's Office), 50.8% more than the 1,077 recorded in 2017 (Osaka Prefecture, 2026).
• About 48% of people aged 65+ who lived alone and were found dead or critically ill at home (forensic autopsies, Kyoto, 2009-2013) had gone more than three days before anyone found them, up from about 14% in 1989-1993 (Nomura et al., Science & Justice, 2016).
• About 14% of people aged 65+ who lived alone and were found dead or critically ill at home (forensic autopsies, Kyoto, 1989-1993) had gone more than three days before anyone found them (Nomura et al., Science & Justice, 2016).
• 40.7% of men who died alone at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2016-2023 were found within 3 days of death, down from 51.8% in 2005 (Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• 51.8% of men who died alone at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2005 were found within 3 days of death (Kanawaku et al. 2010, as cited by Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• 57.1% of women who died alone at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2016-2023 were found within 3 days of death, down from 67.3% in 2005 (Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• 67.3% of women who died alone at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2005 were found within 3 days of death (Kanawaku et al. 2010, as cited by Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• 69.3 per 100,000 men in Tokyo's 23 wards died alone at home in 2016 and were examined by the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office (crude rate of solitary deaths; Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• 29.7 per 100,000 women in Tokyo's 23 wards died alone at home in 2016 and were examined by the Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office (crude rate of solitary deaths; Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• 67 people aged 60 and over who died at home and were found with moderate to marked decomposition were autopsied by Forensic Science SA in 2019-2023, 9.6% of its 696 autopsies and up from 27 in 2000-2004 (Byard, J Forensic Leg Med, 2025).
• 27 people aged 60 and over who died at home and were found with moderate to marked decomposition were autopsied by Forensic Science SA in 2000-2004, 1.6% of its 1,673 autopsies (Byard, J Forensic Leg Med, 2025).
• 9.6% of autopsies at Forensic Science SA in Adelaide in 2019-2023 (67 of 696) were of people aged 60+ who died at home and were found moderately to markedly decomposed, up from 1.6% in 2000-2004 (Byard, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 2025).
• 1.6% of autopsies at Forensic Science SA in Adelaide in 2000-2004 (27 of 1,673) were of people aged 60+ who died at home and were found moderately to markedly decomposed (Byard, Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 2025).
• A 93% rise in undiscovered deaths at home was recorded in Gelsenkirchen (Germany) between 2006 and 2016 (129 to 249 a year) while total deaths in the city stayed nearly flat; in Aachen they rose about 36%, in line with total deaths (Loke, 2023).
• 59 people in Gelsenkirchen (Germany) who died alone at home were found 8 or more days after they were last seen alive in 2016, almost three times the 21 of 2006 (Loke, 2023).
• 4,415 deaths in Japan in 2025 were coded R98, 'unattended death' with no cause determinable (3,396 men, 1,019 women); 3,105 (70.3%) were aged 65+, up from 326 deaths in 1995, when only 30.1% were 65+ (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, 2026).
• 28,124 deaths in Japan in 2025 were coded R99, other ill-defined and unknown causes of death, 18 times the 1,537 recorded in 1995 (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, 2026).
• 1,537 deaths in Japan in 1995 were coded R99, other ill-defined and unknown causes of death (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, 2019).
• In 2019, 8,819 deaths in Germany were coded R98, 'found dead, cause of death undetermined' (5,698 men, 3,121 women), 0.94% of all 939,520 deaths (Destatis data in the WHO Mortality Database).
• In 1998, 2,590 deaths in Germany were coded R98, 'found dead, cause of death undetermined' (1,541 men, 1,049 women), 0.30% of all 852,382 deaths (Destatis data in the WHO Mortality Database).
• 56% more deaths in England and Wales were coded R98/R99 (a proxy for bodies found too decomposed to establish a cause) in 2018 than in 2001, 1,241 versus 798, within the same ICD-10 coding period (Hiam et al., J R Soc Med, 2024).
• In England and Wales, age-standardised rates of deaths coded R98/R99 ('unattended' / 'ill-defined and unknown cause', a proxy for bodies found too decomposed to ascertain cause) rose from 1979 to 2020 while all other mortality fell; by the 2000s the male rate was more than double the female rate.
• 5.6% a year was the average growth of South Korea's lonely deaths in 2019-2023, down from 8.8% a year in 2017-2021, the period of the first survey (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2024).
• 1 week: Swedish forensic researchers define an 'isolated death' as one with at least a week between death and discovery; in Stockholm County in 1992-2000 such deaths rose only slightly, and a record of mental disorder was more common among them than among other medicolegal cases (Thiblin et al., Journal of Forensic Sciences, 2004).
• In Vienna, 320 people were found decomposed or mummified at home in 1993-1997 (versus 412 in 1963-1967), with a significantly higher share aged over 64 in the 1990s and a suicide rate nearly three times higher.
• 24,432 men who lived alone died in the Netherlands in 2025, 46.8% more than the 16,639 in 2011; deaths of women living alone rose 21.1% (25,083 to 30,365) (Statistics Netherlands, 2026).
• In 2011, 41,722 people who lived alone died in the Netherlands, 30.7% of all 135,741 deaths (Statistics Netherlands, 2026).

The pandemic

• At a central London mortuary, markedly decomposed bodies among coronial autopsies rose 70.5% in the year after the first UK lockdown (23 March 2020) versus the year before, alongside a 38% rise in home deaths and a 52.4% fall in hospital deaths coming to autopsy.
• 12% of coronial autopsies in the London area in the months after the March 2020 lockdown (35 of 290) showed advanced decomposition, up from 5.1% (15 of 290) in the months before (Bates, Academic Forensic Pathology, 2023).
• 105,211 more deaths from causes other than COVID-19 than expected occurred in private homes in England and Wales from March 2020 to December 2022, 29.1% above the five-year average, while hospitals recorded 77,718 fewer (Office for National Statistics, 2023).
• 5,813 more deaths than expected from 'symptoms, signs and ill-defined conditions' occurred in private homes in England and Wales from March 2020 to December 2022, 50.1% above the five-year average (Office for National Statistics, 2023).
• 41,321 more deaths than the 2015-2019 average were registered in private homes in England and Wales in 2020 (166,576 in total, 33% above average); private homes were the only place where deaths stayed above average in every month from January 2020 to June 2021 (Office for National Statistics, 2021).
• 27% more people died at home in Italy in March-April 2020 than the 2015-2019 average for those months, while deaths in care homes rose 155% and in hospitals 46% (ISTAT, 2021).

The next twenty years

• Japan's one-person households headed by someone aged 65+ are projected to rise from 7.38 million (2020) to 10.84 million in 2050 (×1.47), from 13.2% to 20.6% of all households.
• 59.7% of men aged 65+ who live alone in Japan are projected to have never married by 2050, up from 33.7% in 2020 (women: 11.9% to 30.2%), 2.69 million men and 1.91 million women (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, 2024).
• 26.1% of men and 29.3% of women aged 65+ in Japan are projected to live alone by 2050, up from 16.4% and 23.6% in 2020 (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, 2024).
• 4,961,000 South Korean households are projected to be a person aged 65+ living alone in 2052, 2.6 times the 1,923,000 of 2022 (Statistics Korea household projections, 2024).
• 973,000 people aged 85 and over in England are projected to live alone in 2032, up 40% from 693,000 in 2022 (ONS 2022-based household projections, 2025).
• 21.1 million white and Black Americans aged 50+ could have no living partner or children by 2060, up from 14.9 million in 2015, according to demographic microsimulation (Verdery & Margolis, PNAS, 2017).
• 6.3 million white and Black Americans aged 50+ could have no living partner, children, siblings or parents by 2060, up from 1.8 million in 2015 (Verdery & Margolis, PNAS, 2017).
• 6.6% of US adults aged 55 and over had neither a living spouse nor biological children in 1998-2010, and 1% had no partner, children, siblings or parents at all (Margolis & Verdery, Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2017).
• 15,784,869 U.S. adults aged 65 and over lived alone in 2024 (U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 1-year estimates, Table B09021).
• 31.26 million people aged 65+ in the EU-27 lived alone (one adult, no resident children) in 2025, out of 97.18 million aged 65+ - 32.2% (Eurostat LFS, lfst_hhindws).
• 4.25 million people aged 65 and over lived alone in the UK in 2025 (ONS Labour Force Survey, Families and households Table 6).
• 9,031,000 people aged 65 and over in Japan lived alone in 2024, 22.4% of the country's 40,326,000 people aged 65+ (MHLW Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions 2024).
• 2,456,000 South Korean households were a person aged 65+ living alone on 1 November 2025, 10.9% of all 22,495,000 ordinary households and up 7.3% in one year (2025 register-based census).
• 1,698,970 Canadians aged 65 and over lived alone in 2021, 25.8% of the 6,586,870 people aged 65+ in private households (Statistics Canada, 2021 Census, 2022).
• 27.6% of Australians aged 65 and over living in households lived alone in 2022 (ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers, 2024).
• 25.3% of New Zealanders aged 65 and over lived alone in 2023, down from 28.8% in 2013 (Stats NZ, 2023 Census, 2024).
• About 192,200 New Zealanders aged 65 and over lived alone in 2023, two-thirds of them women (127,536) (Stats NZ, 2023 Census, 2024).
• 2,089,175 households in Spain consisted of one person aged 65 or over living alone on 1 January 2021, 22.2% more than in 2011; 70.8% were women (INE Census 2021, 2023).
• 88,400 Singapore residents aged 65 and over lived alone in 2025, 11.5% of the 768,800 residents of that age in resident households (Singapore Department of Statistics, 2026; derived share).
• 63,800 Singapore residents aged 65 and over lived alone in 2020, 10.2% of the 622,900 residents of that age in resident households (Singapore Department of Statistics, 2026; derived share).
• 41,200 Singapore residents aged 65 and over lived alone in 2015, 8.9% of the 460,900 residents of that age in resident households (Singapore Department of Statistics, 2026; derived share).
• 27,900 Singapore residents aged 65 and over lived alone in 2010, 8.2% of the 340,700 residents of that age in resident households (Singapore Department of Statistics, 2026; derived share).
• Around 87,000 Singapore residents aged 65 and above were living alone in 2024, according to the Ministry of Health's reply to a parliamentary question on preventing seniors from dying alone.
• 188,569 people aged 65 and over in Hong Kong lived alone in 2021, 13.0% of all older persons (Census and Statistics Department, 2023).
• 119,376 people aged 65 and over lived alone in Hong Kong in 2011 (one-person households), against 188,569 in 2021 (Census and Statistics Department, 2023).
• 594,300 one-person households existed in Hong Kong in 2024, up 38.4% from 429,500 in 2015, and more than half of them (52.9%) were people aged 60 or over (LegCo Research Office, 2025, from Census and Statistics Department data).
• 571,074 people aged 65 and over in Taiwan lived alone in 2020, 15.6% of the 65+ population and 63.0% more than in 2010 (Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, 2021).
• 350,264 people aged 65 and over in Taiwan lived alone in 2010, 14.3% of the 65+ population (Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, 2021).
• 299,328 people aged 65 and over in Taiwan lived alone in 2000, 15.9% of the 65+ population (Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, 2021).
• 976,925 people aged 65 and over in Taiwan were registered as the only member of their household at the end of June 2023, 23.3% of 4,188,314 people aged 65+ (Ministry of the Interior, 2024).
• 29,938,548 households in mainland China consisted of one person aged 65 or over living alone in 2020, 22.5% of the 132,865,245 family households with a member aged 65+ and about twice the 14,439,685 of 2010 (National Bureau of Statistics, 2020 census; derived share).
• 14,439,685 households in mainland China consisted of a single person aged 65 or over (单身老人户) in 2010 (National Bureau of Statistics, 2010 census).
• 12.0% of people aged 60 and over in mainland China lived alone in 2020, with or without a live-in carer, according to the census long-form sample (National Bureau of Statistics, 2020 census; derived).

Sources: Cabinet Office of Japan; Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (2022, 2024, 2025); Rättsmedicinalverket (2025, 2026); Osaka Prefectural Government, Medical Examiner's Office; Science & Justice; Journal of Epidemiology; Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine; Susanne Loke, doctoral dissertation, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum; Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan (2006-2026); World Health Organization, WHO Mortality Database; Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (2023); Journal of Forensic Sciences (2002, 2004); Statistics Netherlands; Office for National Statistics (2013-2026); National Records of Scotland; Statistisches Bundesamt (2024, 2025, 2026); Journal of Clinical Pathology; Academic Forensic Pathology; ISTAT; National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Japan; National Institute of Population and Social Security Research; Statistics Korea; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; The Journals of Gerontology: Series B; U.S. Census Bureau; Eurostat; Ministry of Data and Statistics, Republic of Korea; Statistics Canada; Australian Bureau of Statistics; Stats NZ; Instituto Nacional de Estadística; Singapore Department of Statistics; Ministry of Health, Singapore; Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong SAR (2023); Research Office, Legislative Council Secretariat, Hong Kong SAR; Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Taiwan; Department of Statistics, Ministry of the Interior, Taiwan; National Bureau of Statistics of China, Office of the Seventh National Population Census (2022); National Bureau of Statistics of China, Office of the Sixth National Population Census

Only 14 US deaths in 2022 were assigned ICD-10 R98 ('unattended death') as the underlying cause; the code was used 10 to 19 times a year in 2018-2022 and fewer than 10 times a year in 2023-2024 (CDC WONDER, NCHS, 2026).

Each country counts something different. Japan's police count every person living alone who dies at home, whatever the cause and however soon they are found; the Cabinet Office narrows that to people found after eight days or more. South Korea's law counts people who lived socially isolated lives, whenever they were found. Sweden counts bodies found a week or a month after death, whether or not the person lived alone. Elsewhere, statisticians can only see deaths that ended with no known cause, which catches some bodies found late and misses the rest.

Definitions

• In Japan's police count of people who die alone at home, 'home' means the place that was the base of the person's daily life, excluding outdoors; residents of welfare facilities or nursing homes are excluded even in single rooms, and days elapsed run from the physician-estimated time of death to police notification (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2025).
• Japan's official working definition: an 'isolated death' (孤立死) is 'dying without anyone at one's side, with the body found after a certain period'; for statistics it is operationalised as a police-handled body of a person living alone who died at home (including suicide) and was found 8 or more days after death.
• Tokyo's Medical Examiner's Office defines kodokushi (孤独死) as the death at home of a person from a one-person household, counted among unnatural or unexplained deaths it examines; homeless people and unidentified bodies are excluded and no minimum time to discovery applies (Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, 2011).
• South Korea's statutory definition of a lonely death: 'a person who lived in social isolation, cut off from family, relatives and others around them, dying by suicide, illness or other cause', with no minimum days-to-discovery.
• Since 6 February 2024, South Korea's legal definition of a lonely death no longer requires the body to be found 'after a certain period of time'; a June 2023 amendment had already replaced 'living alone' with 'living in social isolation' (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2024).
• In force since 1 April 2021, South Korea's Act on the Prevention and Management of Lonely Deaths (enacted 31 March 2020) made a national lonely-death survey a legal duty (Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs for MOHW, 2022 survey report).
• 3 days after death is the local yardstick Seoul and Busan used to judge whether a body was found 'after a certain time', since the national law set no threshold (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2023).
• 51 lonely deaths were counted in Seoul in 2020 under the city's own district statistics, down from 83 in 2018 and 69 in 2019 (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2021).
• 5.3% of 978 deaths at home among Seoul welfare recipients living alone in 2020 (52) were lonely deaths found three or more days after death (Seoul Welfare Foundation, 2021).
• 24 hours: German forensic researchers propose defining a 'domestic-setting corpse' (Wohnungsleiche) as a body found in a private home more than 24 hours after death, after a review of German- and English-language forensic journals found 37 qualifying cases (Merz et al., Archiv für Kriminologie, 2011).
• In the ICD-10 used for German death statistics, code R98 'Tod ohne Anwesenheit anderer Personen' (unattended death) covers a body that was found and a person found dead whose cause of death could not be established (BfArM / WHO ICD-10).
• 0 death certificates naming 'unattended death' (ICD-10 R98) reached ONS coders in the two years to October 2023; causes certified as 'decomposed', 'unascertained' or 'skeleton found' are coded R99 instead, so R99 is the only code that captures bodies too decomposed to diagnose in England and Wales (ONS correspondence published by Hiam et al., 2024).
• In 2024, 5,409 deaths at home in the United States were assigned an ill-defined or unknown underlying cause (ICD-10 R99), 49.5% of all 10,921 R99 deaths (CDC WONDER, NCHS, 2026).
• In 1999, 5,492 deaths at home in the United States were assigned an ill-defined or unknown underlying cause (ICD-10 R99), 40.6% of all 13,511 R99 deaths (CDC WONDER, NCHS, 2021).
• 46% of people found dead in the City of Copenhagen had an unknown cause of death on their death certificate (58% in rural Storstrom County), in a three-month study of 1994 certificates that found higher found-dead rates in the city and most bodies in the person's own home (Smith et al., Ugeskrift for Laeger, 2001).
• Danish death certificates were 13.2 times as likely as Finnish ones to carry an ill-defined or unknown cause of death (ICD-10 R00-R99) in 2010 (odds ratio; 18.6 in 2000, 9.5 in 2005) (Ylijoki-Sørensen et al., Forensic Science International, 2014).
• 88.3% of Finnish deaths coded as ill-defined or unknown cause (R00-R99) were investigated by forensic autopsy, versus 3.5% of such Danish deaths by any autopsy (Ylijoki-Sørensen et al., Forensic Science International, 2014).
• Around 3,760 unclaimed dead bodies were on Hong Kong's official list as at September 2025, and the territory keeps no systematic record of solitary deaths, so their number may be underestimated (LegCo Research Office, 2025).
• 7 of 17 Japanese definitions of kodokushi published in 1994-2016 required that the body lay undiscovered for a considerable period, while 11 required that no one was present at the death, 5 that it happened at home and 4 that the person lived alone (Yamazaki and Hemmi, Journal of the Japan Academy of Health Behavioral Science, 2017).
• 16.8% of 960 Japanese municipalities answering a 2008 national survey had carried out, were carrying out or planned a fact-finding survey of kodokushi, so most had no count of such deaths (Fukukawa and Kawaguchi, Japanese Journal of Public Health, 2011).
• 16 studies met the criteria of a 2025 scoping review of solitary death among people living in the community; 53.3% were from Japan and about 60% were retrospective (Cho et al., Global Public Health, 2025).
• Across the four largest Dutch cities, the incidence of single-household bodies found 14+ days after death was similar in Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam and almost twice that of Utrecht (IRR 1.9, 95% CI 1.1-3.0).
• 17.3 per 100,000 residents aged 65+ (European age-standardised) was the rate of solitary deaths, people living alone found dead at home, in Spain's Valencian Community in 2015 (Esteve-Esteve et al., Revista Española de Salud Pública, 2021).
• 14.5 per 100,000 residents aged 65+ (European age-standardised) was the rate of solitary deaths, people living alone found dead at home, in Spain's Valencian Community in 2016 (Esteve-Esteve et al., Revista Española de Salud Pública, 2021).

Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics (2021, 2026); National Police Agency of Japan; Cabinet Office, Japan (2025, 2026); Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (2024, 2025); Rättsmedicinalverket (2025, 2026); Statistisches Bundesamt; Susanne Loke, doctoral dissertation, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum; Office for National Statistics; National Records of Scotland; Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine (2018, 2020, 2024); Revista Española de Salud Pública; Polícia de Segurança Pública; Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Examiner's Office; Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs for the Ministry of Health and Welfare; Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea, with other ministries; Seoul Metropolitan Government; Seoul Welfare Foundation; Archiv für Kriminologie; Bundesinstitut fuer Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte / WHO; Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine; Ugeskrift for Laeger; Forensic Science International; Research Office, Legislative Council Secretariat, Hong Kong SAR; Journal of the Japan Academy of Health Behavioral Science; Nihon Koshu Eisei Zasshi / Japanese Journal of Public Health; Global Public Health

27.4% of men (8,833 of 32,288) and 16.6% of women (2,321 of 13,947) who died alone at home in Tokyo's 23 wards in 2016-2023 had an unknown manner of death, mainly because of advanced decomposition (Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).

Time does two kinds of damage. For people found alive, every extra hour on the floor raises the chance of dying, and most of those found after three days in the one population study that measured it did not survive. For people found dead, the delay erases the evidence: the longer a body lies undiscovered, the more often an autopsy cannot say what happened, and the more often a death certificate records only that the cause is unknown.

• 36.5% of solitary home deaths in Tokyo's 23 wards that occurred in summer (4,412 of 12,090) had an unknown manner of death, versus 13.7% of those in winter (1,922 of 14,046), 2016-2023 (Ninomiya et al., Journal of Epidemiology, 2026).
• 92.9% of autopsies at the most advanced stage of brain decomposition on post-mortem CT ended with an undetermined cause of death, against 7.1% with no brain decomposition, in 176 adult autopsies in Gunma, Japan (Fukuda et al., Legal Medicine, 2025).
• 20-30% of autopsies of people aged 65+ found dead at home in Kyoto in 2009-2013 ended with an unknown cause of death, against none in 1989-1993; the authors link this to longer intervals before discovery (Nomura et al., Science & Justice, 2016).
• 30.7% of 88 people aged 65+ found decomposed after non-traumatic deaths at home in Trabzon, Turkey (2014-2023) had no determinable cause of death at autopsy (27 cases), against a negative-autopsy rate of about 4-5% reported for general forensic practice (Vural and Kalkan, BMC Geriatrics, 2026).
• 80% of decomposed bodies autopsied in Lyon still had a cause of death established, and 86.6% a manner of death, in a series of 350 cases (Maujean et al., Am J Forensic Med Pathol, 2016).
• 350 decomposed bodies underwent medicolegal autopsy in Lyon over five years; most were socially isolated mature men discovered at home (Maujean et al., Am J Forensic Med Pathol, 2016).
• 89% of 629 decomposed bodies autopsied at Forensic Science SA in Adelaide over 1994-2004 had their cause of death ascertained; in 6% (35 cases) neither the cause nor the manner of death could be determined (Byard et al., Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology, 2008).
• 88% of autopsies that ended with an unascertained cause of death were on decomposed bodies (398 of 450) in the published series pooled by Estrin-Serlui et al. (J Clin Pathol, 2024).
• 12% of decomposed bodies at autopsy ended with no ascertainable cause of death (98 of 813) in the published autopsy series pooled by Estrin-Serlui et al., so a count of 'unknown cause' deaths captures only a minority of bodies found decomposed (J Clin Pathol, 2024).
• 8.7% of 913 routine adult coronial autopsies at a London hospital mortuary in 2019 and April 2022-March 2023 were on decomposed bodies (79 cases) (Estrin-Serlui et al., J Clin Pathol, 2024).
• 90% of coronial post-mortems recorded as '1a unascertained' in a London study during the COVID-19 pandemic were attributed to severe decomposition (Estrin-Serlui and Osborn 2023, as reported by Hiam et al., Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2024).
• 16% of severely decomposed bodies in a London coronial autopsy series had an 'unascertained' cause of death; for the rest a cause could still be given (Estrin-Serlui and Osborn 2023, as reported by Hiam et al., Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2024).
• 4.5% of 1,390 forensic autopsies in Aydin, Turkey (2004-2008) were of decomposed bodies (62); 91.9% were men, 38.7% had lived alone and 57.9% were found at home (Erel et al., Ulusal Travma ve Acil Cerrahi Dergisi, 2011).
• 46% of all forensic autopsies at the Homburg Institute of Legal Medicine (Germany) in 2014-2018 were of people found dead in their homes (491 of 1,057); their mean age was 52, about 25 years below the average age at death in Germany, and 69% were men (Umstaetter, 2025).
• Only 9.9% of the 204,562 bodies handled by Japan's police in 2025 were autopsied, down from 12.7% in 2016 (National Police Agency of Japan, 2026).
• 842 of the 1,524 deaths examined by Kobe's medical examiners in 2023 (55.2%) were people who lived alone and died at home; 712 of them (84.6%) were autopsied (Hyogo Medical Examiner's Office, 2024).
• 55.2% of the 16,449 deaths examined by Tokyo's Medical Examiner's Office in 2024 were of people who lived alone (9,074); the office examined 17.8% of all 92,289 deaths in the 23 wards (Tokyo Medical Examiner's Office, 2026).
• 147,814 deaths were reported to coroners in England and Wales in 2025, 26% of all registered deaths and the lowest number since the series began in 1995 (Ministry of Justice, 2026).
• 75,852 post-mortem examinations were ordered by coroners in England and Wales in 2025, in 51% of the deaths reported to them (Ministry of Justice, 2026).

When the person is found alive

Among people living alone who were found helpless or dead at home in San Francisco in 1993, total mortality was 67% for those estimated to have been helpless for more than 72 hours, versus 12% for those helpless for less than 1 hour (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).

• When the time spent helpless at home was estimated at under 1 hour, total mortality was 12% (10% found dead, 2% died in hospital) among people living alone found helpless or dead in San Francisco, 1993 (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).
• Of 387 episodes of people living alone being found helpless or dead at home in San Francisco in 1993, 23% were found dead and a further 5% died in hospital, a total mortality of 28% (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).
• In a 12-week population-based study in San Francisco (1993), paramedics found 367 people living alone helpless or dead at home (387 events); 23% were found dead and a further 5% died in hospital, total mortality 28%.
• 62% of survivors of being found helpless at home were unable to return to independent living (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996; San Francisco, 1993).
• Of people hospitalised after being found helpless at home, two thirds either died or did not return to independent living (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996; San Francisco, 1993).
• Of people found alive but helpless at home, 62% were admitted to hospital, with an average stay of eight days (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996; San Francisco, 1993).
• 52% of hospital-admitted people who had been found helpless at home required intensive care, with an average ICU stay of seven days (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996; San Francisco, 1993).
• In-hospital mortality was 10% overall and 16% among those requiring intensive care, for people admitted after being found helpless at home (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996; San Francisco, 1993).
• Of survivors discharged to supportive care after being found helpless at home, 77% went to nursing homes, skilled-nursing or rehabilitation facilities and only 4% to live with family or friends (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).
• Dehydration was diagnosed in 42 of 261 people (16%) transported to hospital after being found helpless at home; decubitus ulcers in 10 and aspiration pneumonia in 10 (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).
• The estimated average cost of care for each person found helpless at home was $9,985 (70% of 1993 charges for paramedic, hospital and ICU days) in San Francisco (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).
• Among people aged 65 or older living alone, 31.6 per 1,000 per year were found helpless or dead at home (men 42.2, women 27.6 per 1,000) in San Francisco, 1993 (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).
• The annual rate of being found helpless or dead at home rose from 3 per 1,000 people aged 60-64 to 27 per 1,000 aged 85 and over, in San Francisco in 1993 (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).
• Among men aged 85 or older living alone, the rate of being found helpless or dead at home was 123 per 1,000 per year (women 85+ living alone: 59 per 1,000) in San Francisco, 1993 (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).
• San Francisco paramedics identified 387 events in which 367 people were found helpless or dead in their homes over 12 weeks (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).
• Only one of the 367 people found helpless or dead at home in the San Francisco study possessed a commercially available device to summon help (Gurley et al., NEJM, 1996).

Sources: Journal of Epidemiology; Legal Medicine; Science & Justice; BMC Geriatrics; American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology; Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology; Journal of Clinical Pathology, author-supplied supplementary table; Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine; Ulusal Travma ve Acil Cerrahi Dergisi / Turkish Journal of Trauma and Emergency Surgery; Universitaet des Saarlandes, Institute of Legal Medicine Homburg; National Police Agency of Japan; Hyogo Prefectural Government, Medical Examiner's Office; Tokyo Metropolitan Medical Examiner's Office (2026); Ministry of Justice; New England Journal of Medicine

About 42,000 bodies in Japan (41,969) had no one to claim them in FY2023 and were cremated or buried by local governments, equal to 2.7% of the 1,576,016 deaths in 2023 (Japan Research Institute for the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2025).

When no relative comes forward, or one does and refuses, the state buries or cremates the body. These are not counts of deaths that went unnoticed, since many unclaimed people die in hospital, but they are the clearest official trace of people who died with no one to arrange their funeral, and they are rising in every country that publishes them.

Japan and South Korea

• 105,773 deaths with no one to claim the body were handled by Japanese municipalities between April 2018 and October 2021, under the travellers' act (2,852), the Burial Act (10,154) and public assistance funerals (92,767) (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2023).
• 59,848 urns holding the ashes of unclaimed deceased were being kept by Japanese municipalities at the end of October 2021 (responding municipalities only) (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2023).
• About ¥2.15 billion (2,149,559,637 yen) left behind by unclaimed deceased was being held by Japanese municipalities at the end of October 2021, money they could not pass to heirs (responding municipalities only) (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2023).
• ¥494,344 was the average cost of restoring a rental unit in Japan after a tenant died alone there (insurer claims 2015-2025; ¥610,507 in FY2024), on top of about ¥294,000 to clear belongings and ¥337,035 in average rent compensation (Japan Small Amount & Short Term Insurance Association, 2025).
• About 3 years: how long Japanese real-estate agents must disclose a death in a rental home to new tenants when the body lay undiscovered long enough to need special cleaning or major renovation; a natural death found in time need not be disclosed (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, 2021).
• 7,171 unclaimed deceased were recorded in South Korea in 2025, nearly double the 3,603 of 2021 (Ministry of Health and Welfare data, reported 2026).
• 74.9% of South Korea's 7,171 unclaimed deceased in 2025 (5,370) had relatives who refused or avoided claiming the body; 18.7% (1,338) had no relatives and 6.5% (463) had relatives who could not be found (Ministry of Health and Welfare data, reported 2026).
• 60.1% of South Korea's unclaimed deceased in 2025 were aged 65 or over (4,310), up from 51.2% (1,845) in 2021, a 133.6% rise in four years (Ministry of Health and Welfare data, reported 2026).
• 70% of unclaimed deceased are to receive a public funeral by 2027 under South Korea's funeral-facilities plan, up from 42% in 2021 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2023).
• 667 unclaimed deceased, which Seoul treats as possible lonely deaths, were recorded in Seoul in 2020, up from 389 in 2018 and 417 in 2019 (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2021).

United States and Canada

• 42,942 unclaimed deaths recorded by more than 248 US counties in 2009-2021 show unclaimed deaths rising, especially since 2016, with the highest rates in 2020 (Brite, Heiland and Balk, 2025).
• 72% of unclaimed decedents in the US county records were men, and their median age at death was 65 (Brite, Heiland and Balk, 2025).
• 3.14% of male deaths in Los Angeles County went unclaimed, about double the 1.54% of female deaths (sampled years 1976-2013) (Sohn, Timmermans and Prickett, PLOS ONE, 2020).
• 3.16% of deaths in Los Angeles County went unclaimed in 2009, the peak of a rise from about 1.15% in the late 1970s (Sohn, Timmermans and Prickett, PLOS ONE, 2020).
• 2,529 adults who died in New York City in epidemiological year 2020 were buried as unclaimed on Hart Island, the City's public cemetery, 2.7 times the 939 of 2019 (Heiland, Brite and Balk, Scientific Reports, 2026).
• 939 adults who died in New York City in epidemiological year 2019 were buried as unclaimed on Hart Island, the City's public cemetery (Heiland, Brite and Balk, Scientific Reports, 2026).
• 862 adults who died in New York City in epidemiological year 2018 were buried as unclaimed on Hart Island, the City's public cemetery (Heiland, Brite and Balk, Scientific Reports, 2026).
• 22 unclaimed deaths for every one in the same week of 2019 (20 to 1 after adjustment) were recorded on Hart Island at the April 2020 peak of New York City's first COVID-19 wave (Heiland, Brite and Balk, 2026).
• An estimated 10% of all COVID-related excess deaths in New York City during the initial outbreak (March-August 2020) were unclaimed (Heiland, Brite and Balk, 2026).
• 73.6% of the unclaimed adults buried on Hart Island in 2018-2020 were men, and their average age at death was 68.6 (Heiland, Brite and Balk, 2026).
• Up to 3 times as likely to go unclaimed: that was the risk for people who died on extreme-heat days in New York City, compared with other days (Heiland et al., Demography, 2026).
• 1,213 people were buried on Hart Island, New York City's public cemetery for the unclaimed and unidentified, in 2018 (New York City Council Data Team).
• About 62% of people buried on Hart Island in 2018 had next of kin who opted for a public burial; for another 33% the next of kin was unknown or unreachable (New York City Council Data Team).
• 65 was the average age at death of people buried on Hart Island in 2016, against a US average of roughly 79 (New York City Council Data Team).
• In 2023, 1,979 people were buried on Hart Island, up from just over 1,300 in each of 2021 and 2022 (NYC Human Resources Administration data via THE CITY, 2024).
• In 2020, 2,743 people were buried on Hart Island, more than double the 1,138 of 2019 (NYC Human Resources Administration data via THE CITY, 2024).
• In 2019, 1,138 people were buried on Hart Island, New York City's public cemetery (NYC Human Resources Administration data via THE CITY, 2024).
• 2,308 unclaimed people were buried as cremated remains by Los Angeles County in a single communal grave in December 2025 (County of Los Angeles, 2025).
• 1,865 unclaimed people were buried as cremated remains by Los Angeles County in a single communal grave in December 2024 (County of Los Angeles, 2024).
• 1,937 unclaimed people who died in 2020 were buried as cremated remains by Los Angeles County in a single communal grave in December 2023 (County of Los Angeles, 2023).
• 1,624 unclaimed people who died in 2019 were buried as cremated remains by Los Angeles County in a single communal grave in December 2022 (County of Los Angeles, 2022).
• In 37% of Ontario's unclaimed-body cases in 2023 no next of kin could be found; in the rest, relatives were found but could not claim the body because of estrangement, health, travel or money (Office of the Chief Coroner, via CBC News, 2024).
• 150 unclaimed bodies were taken in charge by Quebec's Bureau du coroner in 2023, up from 133 in 2020 (coroner data obtained by access-to-information request; Namian and Perreault, Revue du CREMIS, 2025).

England, Europe and Australia

• 2,600 of the estimated 4,400 public health funerals held by councils in England in 2022/23 (about 59%) were for people aged 65 and over; 1,700 were for people aged 16-64 (Local Government Association, 2024).
• 62% of English councils said 'lack of family or friends to provide a funeral' was the most commonly cited reason for the public health funerals they arranged in 2022/23, up from 58% in 2019/20 (Local Government Association, 2024).
• 73% of English councils said a breakdown of family or friendship was the most common reason relatives gave for refusing to pay for a public health funeral in 2022/23 (Local Government Association, 2024).
• GBP 5.96 million was spent by councils in England on public health funerals in 2022/23, up from GBP 4.50 million in 2019/20 (Local Government Association, 2024).
• An estimated 2,200 public health funerals were conducted by local authorities in England and Wales in 2009/10, broadly the same as in the two previous years (Local Government Association, 2010).
• 3 public health funerals for men were held for every 1 for a woman, on average, by local authorities in England and Wales in 2007/08-2009/10 (Local Government Association, 2010).
• GBP 959 was the calculated average cost of a public health funeral to local authorities in England and Wales in 2009/10 (Local Government Association, 2010).
• 65.9% of the 41,121 public health funerals reported in England in 2014/15-2020/21 were for men (27,115), against 23.0% for women; gender was not recorded for 11.0% (Centre for Population Change, 2025).
• 1,379 public health funerals a year were arranged by NHS hospital trusts in England on average in 2014/15-2020/21, almost a quarter of all reported, alongside 5,766 a year by councils (Centre for Population Change, 2025).
• GBP 983 was the estimated average cost to the NHS of each public health funeral arranged by a hospital trust in England in 2014/15-2020/21, about GBP 1.36 million a year (Centre for Population Change, 2025).
• In 2021, Berlin's 12 district offices arranged 2,733 municipal burials (ordnungsbehoerdliche Bestattungen) for people whose relatives could not be found in time or did not arrange a burial (Senate of Berlin, 2022).
• In 2020, Berlin's 12 district offices arranged 2,614 municipal burials (ordnungsbehoerdliche Bestattungen) for people whose relatives could not be found in time or did not arrange a burial (Senate of Berlin, 2022).
• 2.31 million euros in cash costs were reported by Berlin's district offices for 2,733 municipal burials in 2021, about 846 euros per burial before any recovery from relatives (Senate of Berlin, 2022).
• About 2,700 people a year in Berlin are buried by the district offices because no relatives could be found, according to the Marzahn-Hellersdorf district office, which alone buried more than 155 such people in 2025 (Bezirksamt Marzahn-Hellersdorf, 2025).
• About 1,700 people a year die in Hamburg without relatives or with relatives who cannot be traced, and are buried 'von Amts wegen' (by the authorities) at Oejendorf cemetery (Hamburg Parliament, 2024).
• In 2022, 1,602 people were buried by the authorities ('von Amts wegen') in Hamburg, up from 600-800 a year in the 2000s (Hamburger Friedhoefe, via trauer-now.de, 2023).
• In 2021, 1,427 people were buried by the authorities ('von Amts wegen') in Hamburg, up from 600-800 a year in the 2000s (Hamburger Friedhoefe, via trauer-now.de, 2023).
• More than 2,635 burials were arranged by the Hamburg authorities under s. 10 of the Burial Act in 2015-2017, about 880 a year (Senate of Hamburg, 2018).
• 1,876.29 euros was the average cost in 2015 of a burial arranged by the Hamburg (Germany) authorities under s. 10 of the Burial Act (Senate of Hamburg, 2016).
• 360 people who died in Paris in 2024 with no relatives found were buried by the City at Thiais cemetery, up from 242 in 2019 (Collectif Les Morts de la Rue, 2025).
• 72% of the people buried in Paris in 2024 with no relatives found were men (259 of 360; 100 women), with a mean age of 69 (Collectif Les Morts de la Rue, 2025).
• 21% of the people buried in Paris in 2024 with no relatives found were homeless (75 of 360); the others included people found dead at home or who died in hospital with no one to arrange a funeral (Collectif Les Morts de la Rue, 2025).
• In 2024, Polish municipalities arranged and paid for 5,616 funerals through social assistance ('sprawienie pogrzebu'), at a total cost of 19.1 million zloty; 939 of them were for homeless people (Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy, 2025).
• In 2015, Polish municipalities arranged and paid for 5,283 funerals through social assistance ('sprawienie pogrzebu'), at a total cost of 12.4 million zloty; 1,084 of them were for homeless people (Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy, 2016).
• In 2015, the City of Vienna had to arrange 955 burials because no one else initiated a burial within five days of the death certificate (s. 19 Vienna Burial Act) (City of Vienna via ORF, 2016).
• In 2010, the City of Vienna had to arrange 867 burials because no one else initiated a burial within five days of the death certificate (s. 19 Vienna Burial Act) (City of Vienna via ORF, 2016).
• In 2005, the City of Vienna had to arrange 772 burials because no one else initiated a burial within five days of the death certificate (s. 19 Vienna Burial Act) (City of Vienna via ORF, 2016).
• 276 people without means were buried (91) or cremated (185) through NSW Health's destitute-person program in New South Wales in 2022-23 (Cemeteries & Crematoria NSW, 2024).
• 333 people without means were buried (71) or cremated (262) through NSW Health's destitute-person program in New South Wales in 2020-21 (Cemeteries & Crematoria NSW, 2023).

Sources: Japan Research Institute for the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare; PLOS ONE; Social Science & Medicine; ESRC Centre for Population Change, FOI study of all councils and NHS trusts; Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, Administrative Evaluation Bureau; Japan Small Amount & Short Term Insurance Association, Lonely Death Countermeasures Committee; Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan; Money Today, reporting Ministry of Health and Welfare data submitted to Rep. Kwon Chil-seung; Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea; Seoul Metropolitan Government; Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea, with other ministries; Scientific Reports; Demography; New York City Council; NYC Human Resources Administration; County of Los Angeles (2022-2025); Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario (2024, 2026); Revue du CREMIS; Cook County Medical Examiner's Office (2019-2026); City and County of San Francisco, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner; Local Government Association (2010, 2024); Senatsverwaltung fuer Wissenschaft, Gesundheit, Pflege und Gleichstellung Berlin; Bezirksamt Marzahn-Hellersdorf von Berlin; Hamburgische Buergerschaft, news release; Hamburger Friedhoefe AoeR, reported by trauer-now.de; Senat der Freien und Hansestadt Hamburg (2016, 2018); Collectif Les Morts de la Rue (2024, 2025, 2026); Ministerstwo Rodziny, Pracy i Polityki Spolecznej, annual social-assistance report (2016, 2025); City of Vienna health service, reported by ORF Wien; Cemeteries & Crematoria NSW (2023, 2024); Local Government Association, England; Comune di Milano

In 2024, 1,054,545 deaths in the United States, 34.3% of all 3,072,666 deaths, occurred in the decedent's home (CDC WONDER, NCHS, 2026).

Dying at home is what most people say they want, and in many rich countries it has become more common again after decades of hospital deaths. Most of those deaths are expected and attended. But more deaths at home also means more deaths where no professional is present, and for the growing number of people who live alone, a death at home can mean no one is there at all.

• In 2016, for the first time in CDC WONDER data going back to 1999, more US deaths occurred in the decedent's home (836,348) than among hospital inpatients (807,428) (CDC WONDER, NCHS, 2021).
• In 2024, 1,068,208 US deaths occurred in medical facilities (as inpatients, in outpatient or emergency departments, or on arrival), slightly more than the 1,054,545 that occurred at home (CDC WONDER, NCHS, 2026).
• 31.4% of US deaths in 2018 occurred in the decedent's home, up from 22.7% in 2000 (deaths with a known place, excluding deaths on arrival) (NCHS QuickStats, MMWR, 2020).
• 33% of US deaths in 2018-2022 (5,212,129 of 15,821,860 with an identified place) occurred at home, and home deaths rose significantly over the period (Adekoya and Chang, Public Health Reports, 2026).
• 160,502 people died in private homes in England and Wales in 2025, 28.1% of all 570,988 registered deaths (any cause, all ages; Office for National Statistics, 2026).
• 129,087 people aged 65 and over died in private homes in England and Wales in 2025, 26.7% of the 483,509 deaths at that age (any cause; Office for National Statistics, 2026).
• 95,665 people aged 65 and over died in private homes in England and Wales in 2016, 21.6% of the 443,525 deaths at that age (any cause; Office for National Statistics, 2026).
• 30.6% of men who died in England and Wales in 2025 died in a private home (89,172 of 291,364), against 25.5% of women (71,330 of 279,624) (Office for National Statistics, 2026).
• 20,013 people in Scotland died at home or in another non-institutional place in 2024, 32.1% of all 62,291 deaths (National Records of Scotland, 2025).
• 16,153 people in Scotland died at home or in another non-institutional place in 2019, 27.8% of all 58,108 deaths (National Records of Scotland, 2025).
• 14,080 people in Scotland died at home or in another non-institutional place in 2000, 24.4% of all 57,799 deaths (National Records of Scotland, 2025).
• 5,661 people in Northern Ireland died at home in 2024, 31.4% of all 18,050 registered deaths (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, 2025).
• 4,367 people in Northern Ireland died at home in 2019, 27.7% of all 15,758 registered deaths (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, 2025).
• 3,888 people in Northern Ireland died at home in 2014, 26.5% of all 14,678 registered deaths (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, 2025).
• 183,361 people died at home in France in 2024 (their own home or someone else's), 28.5% of all 643,168 deaths (INSEE, 2025).
• 152,533 people aged 65 and over died at home in France in 2024, 27.7% of the 551,626 deaths at that age and 83% of all home deaths (INSEE, 2025).
• In 2024, 32.1% of deaths in the Netherlands took place at home (55,303 of 172,165), more than in nursing homes (48,570) or hospitals (34,828) (Statistics Netherlands, 2026; provisional).
• In 2019, 49,780 deaths in the Netherlands (32.8% of 151,885) took place at home (Statistics Netherlands, 2020).
• 25.6% of deaths of people aged 80 and over in the Netherlands in 2024 took place at home (24,319 of 94,810), versus 39.9% in nursing homes (Statistics Netherlands, 2026; provisional).
• 16.9% of Belgian health-fund members aged 40+ who lived alone died at home or elsewhere in 2023-2024, about half the 31.9% among those who did not live alone; 46.7% died in residential care (Mutualité chrétienne, 2026).
• 23.8% of Belgian health-fund members aged 40 and over who died in 2023-2024 died at home or elsewhere, versus 42.6% in hospital and 33.5% in residential care (Mutualité chrétienne, 2026).
• In 2025 only 17.5% of deaths in Vienna occurred at home (2,874 of 16,467), against 32.1% in rural Burgenland (1,115 of 3,469) (Statistik Austria, 2026).
• 28.1% of male deaths and 24.8% of female deaths in Austria in 2016 occurred in private households, so men were more likely to die at home (Lang, Institute for Advanced Studies, 2018, from Statistik Austria data).
• About 20% of people in Switzerland die at home or elsewhere outside an institution; around 40% die in hospital and 40% in a nursing home, roughly 26,000 people a year in each (Swiss Federal Council, 2020).
• About 15 years younger on average: people who die at home in Switzerland are about 73, against 87 for those who die in nursing homes (Swiss Federal Council, 2020).
• 19% of people aged 65+ who died in Switzerland in 2016 died at home or somewhere other than a hospital (37%) or nursing home (44%) (Swiss Health Observatory, 2019).
• In 2017, 21.3% of deaths in selected areas of Westphalia (Germany) occurred in the deceased's own home, from death certificates (age-standardised; Dasch and Zahn, 2021).
• In 2011, 23.3% of deaths in selected areas of Westphalia (Germany) occurred in the deceased's own home, from death certificates (age-standardised; Dasch and Zahn, 2021).
• In 2001, 27.8% of deaths in selected areas of Westphalia (Germany) occurred in the deceased's own home, from death certificates (age-standardised; Dasch and Zahn, 2021).
• Only 14.6% of deaths in the city of Muenster (Germany) occurred at home in 2021, down from 24.0% in 2001, according to all death certificates issued in the city (Dasch, 2024).
• About half of deaths from natural causes in Denmark in 2012-2020 occurred at the person's home address, a category that includes nursing-home residents, while the hospital share fell from 46% to 40% (REHPA, 2024).
• 22.4% of deaths of people aged 65 and over in Ireland in 2023 took place at home (6,592 of 29,483) (Central Statistics Office, 2025).
• 16.1% of deaths in Japan in 2025 occurred at home (255,816 of 1,589,533 deaths) (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan, 2026).
• 15.2% of deaths in South Korea in 2024 occurred at home, while 75.1% occurred in hospitals and other medical institutions such as long-term care hospitals (Statistics Korea, provisional 2024 data).
• Only 14% of Australians aged 65 and over who died in Victoria and Queensland in 2016-17 died somewhere other than a hospital or residential aged care; 50% died in hospital and 36% in residential aged care (AIHW, 2021).
• 30.8% of the 100.7 million adult deaths recorded in 32 countries in 2012-2021 took place at home, ranging in Europe from 13.1% in Malta to 61.5% in Bulgaria (Lopes et al., EClinicalMedicine, 2024).
• 32.2% of adult deaths in the 32 countries took place at home in 2020-2021, up from 30.9% in 2018-2019 and 30.1% in 2012-2013; home deaths rose during the pandemic in 23 of 29 countries (Lopes et al., EClinicalMedicine, 2024).
• 33.1% of adult deaths in Northern Ireland took place at home in 2020-2021, up from 27.5% in 2018-2019, the largest pandemic increase of the 29 countries with trend data (Lopes et al., EClinicalMedicine, 2024).
• 31.9% of men who died in the 32 countries in 2012-2021 died at home, against 30.5% of women; men were more likely to die at home in 19 of 29 countries (Lopes et al., EClinicalMedicine, 2024).
• Between 13% (Canada) and 53% (Mexico) of people who died in 2008 from conditions indicating a need for palliative care died at home across 14 countries, while hospital deaths ranged from 25% (the Netherlands) to 85% (South Korea) (Pivodic et al., J Epidemiol Community Health, 2016).
• 54% or more of all deaths occurred in hospital in half of 45 populations compared internationally, ranging from 78% in Japan to 20% in China, with over 16 million deaths covered (Broad et al., International Journal of Public Health, 2013).
• 36% of deaths in the Netherlands in 2017 occurred at home and 35% in long-term care facilities, giving the Netherlands the lowest hospital share of deaths among OECD countries studied (OECD, 2023).
• 47% of deaths in Chile in 2017 occurred at home, the highest share among OECD countries reported (OECD, 2023).

Where people want to die

• 71% of US adults say that, given the choice, they would prefer to die at home; only 9% would choose a hospital, 7% a hospice and 1% a nursing home (Kaiser Family Foundation/The Economist survey, 2016; published 2017).
• 41% of adults in the United States think they are most likely to die at home, against 71% who would prefer to; 24% expect to die in a hospital (Kaiser Family Foundation/The Economist survey, 2016; published 2017).
• 21% of adults in Japan think they are most likely to die at home, against 55% who would prefer to; 58% expect to die in a hospital (Kaiser Family Foundation/The Economist survey, 2016; published 2017).
• 55% of adults in Japan say that, given the choice, they would prefer to die at home (Kaiser Family Foundation/The Economist four-country survey, 2016; published 2017).
• 61% of adults in Italy say that, given the choice, they would prefer to die at home (Kaiser Family Foundation/The Economist four-country survey, 2016; published 2017).
• 33% of adults in Italy think they are most likely to die at home, against 61% who would prefer to (Kaiser Family Foundation/The Economist survey, 2016; published 2017).
• 64% of adults in Brazil say that, given the choice, they would prefer to die at home (Kaiser Family Foundation/The Economist four-country survey, 2016; published 2017).
• 35% of adults in Brazil think they are most likely to die at home, against 64% who would prefer to (Kaiser Family Foundation/The Economist survey, 2016; published 2017).
• 81% of US adults say having loved ones around them is extremely or very important when they think about their own death (48% extremely important); the shares are 80% in Italy, 83% in Brazil and 67% in Japan (Kaiser Family Foundation/The Economist survey, 2016).
• Up to 84% of people in OECD countries say they would prefer to die at home, yet on average half of all deaths in OECD countries in 2019 happened in hospital (OECD, 2023).
• In 75% of studies on where people want to die (210 studies, just over 100,000 people in 33 countries), most respondents preferred to die at home, as did 9 of the 14 high-quality studies (Gomes et al., BMC Palliative Care, 2013).
• Between 49% and 70% of the general public said they would prefer to die at home in the four high-quality studies of public preferences (patients: 31% to 87% in nine studies) (Gomes et al., BMC Palliative Care, 2013).
• Between 51% (Portugal) and 84% (the Netherlands) of adults would prefer to die at home if they had a serious illness such as advanced cancer, in a random telephone survey of 9,344 people in seven European countries (England, Flanders, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain) (Gomes et al., Annals of Oncology, 2012).
• 51% to 55% of patients with life-threatening illness prefer to die at home according to two meta-analyses, making home the most preferred place of death in an umbrella review of 15 systematic reviews covering 229 studies (Pinto et al., Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 2024).
• 31.3% of people aged 65+ in Japan who live alone would want to spend their final days at home if incurably ill, against 45.8% of all older people; 39.7% of those living alone would choose a hospital (Cabinet Office survey, 2023).
• 45.8% of people aged 65+ in Japan say they would want to spend their final days at home if they had an incurable illness, the most common choice; 36.3% would choose a hospital or long-term care hospital (Cabinet Office survey, 2023).
• 61% of 1,499 surveyed members of the Aalborg branch of DanAge, a Danish association for older people, chose home as a preferred place to die (46% a hospice; more than one answer allowed); mean age 67 (Krarup et al., Palliative Medicine Reports, 2025).
• 30% of UK adults picked being at home as one of their three most important priorities for their last year of life; being free of pain, the company of loved ones and keeping their dignity ranked higher (Marie Curie survey by Opinium of 8,077 adults, 2021; report 2024).

Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics (2021, 2026); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Public Health Reports; Office for National Statistics (2021, 2026); National Records of Scotland; Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency; INSEE (2025); Statistics Netherlands (2020, 2026); Mutualité chrétienne; Statistik Austria; Institut fuer Hoehere Studien, Vienna; Swiss Federal Council / Federal Office of Public Health; Schweizerisches Gesundheitsobservatorium; Deutsches Aerzteblatt International; Das Gesundheitswesen; REHPA, Danish Knowledge Centre for Rehabilitation and Palliative Care; Central Statistics Office, Ireland (2021-2025); Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan (2025, 2026); Statistics Korea; Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; EClinicalMedicine, EOLinPLACE project; Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health; International Journal of Public Health; OECD; eClinicalMedicine; Glowny Urzad Statystyczny (2021, 2025); Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Cause of Death Registry; Statistics Canada; Kaiser Family Foundation; Kaiser Family Foundation and The Economist; BMC Palliative Care; Annals of Oncology; Journal of Pain and Symptom Management; Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2024); Palliative Medicine Reports; Marie Curie

73.4% of people aged 65+ who live alone in Japan say isolated death (dying unattended and being found later) feels close to them, 25.7% 'very much' and 47.7% 'somewhat', against 48.7% of all people 65+ (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2024; survey fieldwork FY2023, n=537).

Most older people who live alone have thought about it. In Japan the share who say an isolated death feels close to them has risen with every survey; in Seoul, nearly two in three older people living alone think it could happen to them, yet almost none have prepared. Fear of dying alone is not the same as loneliness, which is less common in old age than at any other point in adult life.

• 48.7% of people aged 65+ in Japan feel that isolated death is close to them (14.4% very much, 34.3% somewhat) (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2024; survey fieldwork FY2023, n=2,677).
• 68.8% of never-married people aged 65+ in Japan (n=138) and 70.0% of those without children (n=277) feel isolated death is close to them, versus 42.8% of those with a spouse or partner (Cabinet Office of Japan, 2024; survey fieldwork FY2023).
• 34.1% of people aged 60+ in Japan said an isolated death felt like a problem close to them in the Cabinet Office's 2018 survey (Annual Report on the Ageing Society, 2022).
• 64.5% of Seoul residents aged 65+ who live alone think they could die alone at home with no one looking after them, against 23.9% of all older Seoul residents (Seoul Senior Citizen Survey, 2024).
• 23.9% of Seoul residents aged 65+ think they could die alone at home with no one looking after them (19.1% somewhat likely, 4.8% very likely); 41.8% gave a neutral answer (Seoul Senior Citizen Survey, 2024).
• 3.7% of Seoul residents aged 65+ say they have made preparations in case they die alone; 43.4% want to prepare but do not know how and 52.9% feel no need (Seoul Senior Citizen Survey, 2024).
• 46% of U.S. solo agers fear dying alone, versus 37% of other adults 50+; 50% versus 33% fear being moved somewhere against their will (AARP Research / NORC survey, 2020).
• 69% of 1,499 surveyed members of the Aalborg branch of DanAge, a Danish association for older people, said dying alone would worry them (women 73%, men 58%); mean age 67 (Krarup et al., Palliative Medicine Reports, 2025).
• 32% of adults in Great Britain named being alone as their greatest fear about dying, the most common answer, ahead of inadequate pain relief (20%) (YouGov survey of 2,246 adults for Dignity in Dying, April 2008).
• 31.1% of South Koreans who live alone have no one to help them when they are ill; the 68.9% who do is below the national average (Ministry of Data and Statistics, One-person households in statistics 2025).
• About 1,525,000 South Koreans living alone were estimated to be at risk of a lonely death, 21.3% of one-person households and 3% of the population, from a national survey of 9,471 one-person households (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2023).
• 373,000 South Koreans in their 50s living alone were estimated to be at risk of a lonely death (33.9% of that age group's one-person households), more than any other age band; 355,000 in their 60s (30.2%) and 245,000 in their 40s (25.8%) followed (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2023).
• 16.2% of South Koreans aged 70+ who live alone, about 210,000 people, are at risk of a lonely death, a lower share than among those in their 50s (33.9%) or 60s (30.2%) (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2023).
• 170,938 people were classified as at risk of a lonely death by South Korea's local authorities in 2024, the first national tally of people actually identified; 31.1% (53,136) were in Seoul (Ministry of Health and Welfare data, reported 2025).
• 750,000 people aged 60 and over in France (4%) have no contact with any of four social circles (family, friends, neighbours, associations), up from 300,000 in 2017 and 530,000 in 2021 (Petits Frères des Pauvres / CSA Research barometer, 2025).
• 530,000 people aged 60+ in France were in 'social death' in 2021, cut off from family, friends, neighbours and associations at the same time (Petits Frères des Pauvres barometer, 2025).
• 300,000 people aged 60+ in France were in 'social death' in 2017, cut off from family, friends, neighbours and associations at the same time (Petits Frères des Pauvres barometer, 2025).
• 2.5 million people aged 60+ in France feel lonely every day or almost every day (Petits Frères des Pauvres / CSA barometer, 2025).
• 32 older people in France were reported in the press as found dead at home weeks, months or years after dying in 2025 (Petits Frères des Pauvres media census, reported by franceinfo, 2026).
• More than 30 older people in France were reported in the press as found dead at home several weeks to several years after dying in 2024 (Petits Frères des Pauvres media census, 2025).
• 21 older people in France were reported in the press as found dead at home weeks, months or years after dying in 2023, according to the media census of the charity Petits Frères des Pauvres (2026).
• 13 older people in France were reported in the press as found dead at home weeks, months or years after dying in 2022, according to the media census of the charity Petits Frères des Pauvres (2026).

Loneliness is a different measure

• About 871,000 deaths a year worldwide are attributable to loneliness, according to the first global estimate by the WHO Commission on Social Connection (2014-2019 data; WHO, 2025). This counts deaths linked to the feeling of loneliness, not people who die alone.
• 11.8% of people aged 60 and over worldwide experience loneliness, the lowest rate of any age group (women 13.0%, men 9.9%), against 20.9% of 13-17-year-olds (WHO Commission on Social Connection, 2025).
• 16% of people worldwide, about one in six, experienced loneliness in 2014-2023, according to the WHO Commission on Social Connection (WHO, 2025).
• 25% to 34% of older people are socially isolated, according to meta-analytic estimates covering 1990-2022 cited by the WHO Commission on Social Connection (WHO, 2025).
• Living alone is associated with a 32% higher likelihood of death (odds ratio 1.32), slightly more than social isolation (1.29) or loneliness (1.26), in a meta-analysis of studies from 1980 to 2014 (Holt-Lunstad et al., Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2015).
• 9.8% of people in Japan who live alone often or always feel lonely, against 3.4% of those who live with others (Cabinet Office national survey of 11,873 people aged 16+, December 2025).
• 3.0% of people aged 80+ in Japan often or always feel lonely (2.5% of those aged 70-79), less than the 4.5% average for all adults aged 16+ (Cabinet Office national survey, December 2025).
• 5% of people aged 75 and over in England feel lonely often or always (4% of those aged 65-74), below the 7% average for adults aged 16+ (DCMS Community and Engagement Survey 2025/26).
• 33.4% of US adults aged 50 to 80 felt a lack of companionship some of the time or often in 2024, back near the 33.9% of 2018 after peaking at 41.6% in 2022 (University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging; Malani et al., JAMA, 2024).
• 13% of people in the EU felt lonely most or all of the time in the previous four weeks and 35% at least some of the time, in the first EU-wide loneliness survey (European Commission Joint Research Centre, EU-LS 2022).
• 48.9% of South Koreans who live alone often or sometimes feel lonely, 10.7 points above the 38.2% for the population as a whole (Ministry of Data and Statistics, One-person households in statistics 2025).

Sources: Cabinet Office of Japan (2018, 2019, 2024); Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2022, 2026); Seoul Metropolitan Government / Seoul Welfare Foundation; AARP Research; Palliative Medicine Reports; Dignity in Dying; Ministry of Data and Statistics, Republic of Korea; Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea, with other ministries; Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea; Seoul Shinmun, reporting Ministry of Health and Welfare data submitted to Rep. Seo Mi-hwa; Petits Frères des Pauvres, survey by CSA Research; Petits Frères des Pauvres (2025, 2026); World Health Organization; Perspectives on Psychological Science; Department for Culture, Media and Sport, UK Government; JAMA; European Commission, Joint Research Centre

About 155,000 emergencies, such as kitchen fires reported straight to 119 and older people found collapsed in the bathroom, were responded to through South Korea's in-home emergency-detection service in 2023 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2024).

The evidence points to one thing above all: someone who expects to hear from you. People who live with others are almost never found late, and people living alone are found sooner when family, carers or neighbours are in regular contact. Japan and South Korea have built national systems of watch-over agreements, check-in calls and home sensors; their reach is large, their effect on deaths is not yet measured, and false alarms are common.

• About 240,000 South Korean households, mostly older people living alone, had emergency-detection devices installed under the government's Emergency Safety and Security Service in 2023 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2024).
• 154 of the 46,974 alerts sent by Seoul's smart plugs over about 16 months were judged to be real danger and acted on; the plugs, which flag households whose electricity use and light levels stop changing, were installed in 2,709 one-person households at risk of lonely death (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2022).
• 73,215 crisis alerts from Seoul's smart check-in services (smart plugs, AI calls, phone and power-use monitoring) were answered by the city's night and holiday control centre in the three years to January 2025 (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2025).
• 44,923 households in Seoul used the city's 'smart check-in' services in 2024, six technologies (smart plugs, AI phone calls, AI speakers and others) that watch electricity, phone and light data around the clock and trigger a welfare check when something looks wrong (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2025).
• About 1.99 million check-in phone calls and 370,000 home visits were made in 2024 by Seoul's neighbourhood care teams to about 70,000 people who need regular checks (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2025).
• About 110,000 Seoul residents at risk of isolation receive regular check-ins: about 70,000 at high or medium risk of lonely death are called or visited by neighbourhood carers and about 40,000 at low risk get AI and sensor-based checks (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2025).
• 559 lonely deaths were recorded in Seoul in 2023, down from 678 in 2022 according to the national survey, a fall Seoul City attributes to its check-in programmes; the attribution is the city's claim, not an evaluation (Seoul Metropolitan Government, 2025).
• 229 cities, counties and districts, every local authority in South Korea, ran the lonely-death prevention pilot from July 2024, up from 39 in August 2022 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2024).
• 0.85 lonely deaths per 100 deaths by 2027 is the target of South Korea's 1st Basic Plan for the Prevention of Lonely Deaths, a 20% cut from 1.06 in 2021 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2023).
• 1.09 lonely deaths per 100 deaths were recorded in South Korea in 2024, above the 2021 baseline of 1.06 that the national plan aims to cut to 0.85 by 2027, so the rate was 28% above the target (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2023 and 2025; derived).
• 1,308 of Japan's 1,741 municipalities (75.1%) had a watch-over agreement with a consumer co-op by end of March 2025, under which delivery staff report signs such as uncollected mail or untouched deliveries (Japanese Consumers' Co-operative Union, 2025).
• 1,217 of Japan's 1,741 municipalities (70.0%) had a watch-over agreement with a consumer co-op by end of March 2022, under which delivery staff report signs such as uncollected mail or untouched deliveries (Japanese Consumers' Co-operative Union, 2022).
• 1,022 of Japan's 1,741 municipalities (58.7%) had a watch-over agreement with a consumer co-op by September 2017, under which delivery staff report signs such as uncollected mail or untouched deliveries (Japanese Consumers' Co-operative Union, 2017).
• 28.6% of older people on Taiwan's register of seniors living alone (19,190 of 67,003) had an emergency-call link installed at the end of 2025 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan, 2026; derived).
• 71,142 older people were on Taiwan's register of seniors living alone who need care (列冊需關懷獨居老人) at the end of June 2026, up from 67,003 at the end of 2025 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan, 2026).
• 67,003 older people were on Taiwan's register of seniors living alone who need care (列冊需關懷獨居老人) at the end of 2025 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan).
• 41,983 older people were on Taiwan's register of seniors living alone who need care (列冊需關懷獨居老人) at the end of 2020 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan).
• 47,665 older people were on Taiwan's register of seniors living alone who need care (列冊需關懷獨居老人) at the end of 2015 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan).
• 9,000 clients had subscribed to La Poste's 'Veiller sur mes parents' service, in which postal workers visit older people and report back to their families, by March 2020 (La Poste, 2020).
• 43,074 older people living alone and/or isolated, or otherwise vulnerable, were flagged by Portugal's GNR police in its 2025 'Censos Sénior' operation; Guarda (5,852) and Vila Real (5,167) districts led (GNR, 2026).

Sources: Ministry of Health and Welfare, Republic of Korea (2023, 2024, 2025); Seoul Metropolitan Government (2022, 2025); Japanese Consumers' Co-operative Union (2017, 2022, 2025); Ministry of Health and Welfare, Taiwan, statistics compiled (2025, 2026); La Poste Groupe; Guarda Nacional Republicana