A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed 38 million obituaries published from 1998 to 2024 to find the most commonly cited attributes of a worthy life. It found that the most prevalent value in an obit was tradition — such as a religious belief — as well as benevolence, with those two values appearing in about 70 percent of obituaries. The role of major events had some effect on the prevalence of different values; interestingly, references to achievement declined after the 2008 financial crisis.
Stylianos Syropoulos, David Markowitz, and Kyle Fiore Law, The Conversation
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