抄録
Long-term life planning is important especially in an aging society, but it usually doesn't include ”death”, which is unavoidable.
The increasing variety of patterns of living sense and family relationships have changed the social and economical environment related to ”death”. In Japan, the stem family system has been replaced by the conjugal one after WW II, which implies that ”death”, once dealt with at the ”le” level, is now handled by individuals or immediute family. In other words, we must plan the end of our own life, including funeral services. In Japan, people tend to purchase their own grave while they are still living, but the needs of consumers for burial formalities have been changing. Moreover, there's no assurance that someone will maintain ”le” graves today. Thus, systematic terminal life planning is connected with consumer education concerning the services related to ”death” and also the ways of thinking about life.
