Study of 38 Million Obituaries Finds Faith Dominates as Caring Language Declines After COVID-19

Overview

• The dataset comprised 38,245,928 U.S. obituaries from 1998–2024 on Legacy.com, totaling about 6.7 billion words.
• Tradition, particularly religious faith, appeared in about 80% of notices, while benevolence featured in 76%, far outpacing achievement or power.
• Following COVID-19’s onset, benevolence language dropped within a month and remained lower four years later.
• Values language shifted around major events, with increases in caring and tradition after 9/11 and declines in achievement during the 2008 financial crisis.
• The authors report limits including platform sampling bias, gender inferred from names, small effect sizes, correlational design, and restricted public access to the full dataset.