Paupers, burial clubs and funeral insurance: Calculating moral panics

Lee Moerman and Sandra van der Laan

The British Accounting Review, 2021, vol. 53, issue 2

Abstract: Funeral insurance is an example of a practice that has evolved from the grass-roots burial clubs that developed from the 18th century as a response to the social anxiety wrought by the threat of a pauper's funeral. Largely accessed by the poor and working classes to avoid this social stigma, burial clubs commodified a social risk into a manageable and controllable financial arrangement. We explore this phenomenon through the lens of moral panic to trace the calculative practices that recast the social anxiety of a pauper's funeral into the novel metric of a ‘funeral benefit’.

Keywords: Burial clubs; Friendly societies; Funeral insurance; Moral panic; Novel metrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:bracre:v:53:y:2021:i:2:s0890838920300317

DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2020.100911

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