She studies lonely deaths — and shared her door code with a neighbor
Song In-joo, head of Ssro Lab and a researcher who has studied lonely deaths for 11 years, at Cafe Dillis in Seongbuk District, Seoul / Korea Times photo by Kang Ye-jin
Researcher Song In-joo's father had been adamant that he did not want to die in a hospital, so she stayed by his side at home through his final days.
"I realized that death isn't a momentary event, but a long, painful process. You have to work hard to die," Song said.
"Everything is going as it should," her father said two days before he died.
"I believe my father died peacefully, thanks to the care and human touch he received," Song said. "Death inevitably requires the help of others."
That was in 2016. Song, then a senior research fellow at the Seoul Welfare Foundation and now head of Ssro Lab, began researching lonely deaths that year in hopes of preventing people from dying without care or human contact.
To do so, she first had to determine who dies in isolation, why they become isolated and how they spend their final days. Since she could not ask the dead themselves, she analyzed police records on 20,000 unattended deaths and interviewed family members and neighbors to examine the circumstances surrounding lonely deaths — a process known as a "social autopsy."
Song recently published "A Society That Dies Alone," a book containing the findings of her research.
Song defines a lonely death as one in which a person lived with virtually no social connections, went through the dying process alone and was discovered at least three days after passing away.
About 1 percent of all deaths each year are classified as lonely deaths, with 3,924 cases recorded in 2024. In many cases, the first indication is the odor of a decomposing body. It is a tragedy in which the fact that someone had been there becomes known far too late, through the smell left behind.
Having visited numerous sites of lonely deaths, Song knows better than most how lonely and devastating such deaths can be. She also lives alone with her dog and describes herself as being in a "high-risk group for lonely death."
The Hankook Ilbo asked her what people can do to avoid what she calls a "bad death."
The term "lonely death" began appearing widely in Korean media in the 2000s. Despite various government measures, the number of such deaths has continued to rise. Korea Times file
Q: Everyone is ultimately alone at the moment of death, and once we are dead, we know nothing. Why are people particularly afraid of lonely deaths and so eager to avoid them?
A: In one survey, many people said they didn't want to be remembered as a decomposing body. They want to remain in a well-managed, predictable state even after death. You could call it a desire for control.
What people are really afraid of may not be lonely death itself, but a life so isolated that they have to die alone. Lonely death is the result of extreme isolation. "Death by isolation" would actually be a more accurate term. A social system that gives people no chance to get back on their feet, no matter how hard they try, drives them into isolation.
What we need to prevent and reduce is isolation. We have to address it through connection and support. When "zero lonely deaths" becomes a policy goal, public officials and volunteers seek out people hovering between life and death and take them to hospitals no matter what. One 89-year-old welfare recipient reportedly said, "Just let me die." How can you prevent death itself? A more realistic goal is to help people die comfortably and in their own way, and to make sure they are found as soon as possible afterward.
Q: Landlords and welfare officials are usually the first to discover the bodies of people who die alone. It seems particularly sad that they are not family members.
A: It might be better to have your body found by someone you know, but when someone dies after becoming disconnected from others, that can't always be helped. The proportion of bodies discovered by family members fell from 36 percent in 2019 to about 27 percent in 2024. That suggests disconnection is becoming more severe.
Meeting family members is also the hardest part of conducting social autopsies. Some get angry and ask why we contacted them. Most also refuse to claim the body. All we can do is imagine what must have happened during the person's lifetime for things to reach that point.
Ironically, it is often complete strangers who mourn them. When a notice about a lonely death is posted at a tiny single-room residence or similar place, people quietly leave cigarettes or gum. They spend the person's life pretending not to notice them, only to show that they care after the person dies. If that's the case, why not acknowledge one another while we're still alive? How did our lives reach a point where we have to organize, train and dispatch people just to check whether others are alive and well?
Song In-joo / Korea Times photo by Kang Ye-jin
Q: Men account for 80 percent of all lonely deaths, and men aged 50 or older alone account for 54 percent. Why are men more vulnerable than women in this case?
A: Men in a patriarchal society often feel guilty when they are no longer the person who "provides and leads." They feel ashamed, so they cannot ask for help and instead choose isolation.
Women are relatively more open to asking for help. They tend to be better at communicating and forming relationships, and they sense what they need to do to save themselves and their families and then act on it. That may itself be a result of social pressure that places responsibility for caregiving on women.
Even when someone offers help, men are much slower to accept it. If we want to help men, we have no choice but to keep reaching out. Men, too, have to say it even when they don't want to: Help me.
Q: Lonely deaths are increasing among young people, particularly young women?
A: About half of lonely deaths among people in their 20s and 30s involve people who died by suicide and were left undiscovered for a period of time, resulting in their cases also being classified as lonely deaths. Most bodies of young people who die alone are claimed by their families, which means their social networks still exist.
Despite that, lonely deaths among young people are increasing. I wonder whether it may be related to a growing sense of self-determination — the idea that "I decide how I live my life." Opportunities are scarce, and people rank those opportunities and reject ones they find unsatisfactory. Some eventually become isolated and give up on life.
Last year, I interviewed young professional women who had left their hometowns to live alone in Seoul. They hadn't necessarily wanted to live in Seoul. They said they would rather live near family and friends if only they could find jobs there, even for lower salaries. Their social networks had effectively been taken away from them. It was heartbreaking.
Q: There is still a social stigma that lonely deaths are the fault of individuals who are lazy or incapable.
A: There are many paths to isolation. Some people keep working when they're sick until their health collapses. Some are defrauded and lose their ability to trust others. Some develop incurable diseases and worry that they will stand in the way of their family's future. Some are simply meticulous people who hate burdening others.
Life is full of risks, and anyone can end up in that position after one wrong turn. Lonely deaths will continue to increase. Single-person households now account for nearly 40 percent of all households, while caregiving and welfare services are failing to keep pace with increases in aging and illness. And as the world changes faster, more people will become vulnerable because they cannot adapt.
Q: That sounds alarming. What should people do right now?
A: Don't try to handle everything alone. These days, I've been going around saying something almost like a campaign slogan: Let's live while inconveniencing others.
We shouldn't be afraid to ask for help, and we need to make sure there are people we can ask. Draw several concentric circles with yourself at the center. Starting with the smallest circle, fill them with the names of people around you, from family to friends, in order of closeness. Would they come running if something happened to you? Those people are your "social guard."
One member of my social guard is a neighbor who, like me, lives alone and has a dog. We shared our front-door passcodes. It means, "If something bad happens to me, please find me." It gives me peace of mind.
Q: What if someone doesn't have even one person in their social guard?
A: Write down the name of someone who seems most likely to come, and start treating that person well today. You have to put some effort into the relationship before you burden someone. You can't expect something for nothing.
I sometimes buy vegan bread and dumplings for that neighbor, who is vegan. We're devoted to each other.
People who live alone are inevitably vulnerable when it comes to care. You can fill some of the gaps by purchasing care services, but there are clear limits. That's why we need advance care planning systems like those introduced in the United States and Britain.
People living alone should make well-dying plans. They should include specific instructions, such as, "When I'm terminally ill, don't feed me, just give me water," or, "If I'm over 70, don't intubate me." They should draw up the plan with a representative who can ensure their wishes are followed if aging or illness impairs their ability to make decisions, and the plan should be updated regularly.
Without that kind of preparation, many things can happen against your wishes while you are dying alone. We need to plan not only our funerals but also the process of dying.
Q: Is marriage a safety net against lonely death?
A: I once seriously wondered whether I should get married even though it might be late for me. What's important is living while caring for someone else, whether that person is a spouse, friend or member of a community.
Living with someone is more inconvenient and bothersome than living alone, but humans cannot live entirely on their own. We find our humanity by caring for one another. Both living and dying are possible only through dependence on others.
Even assisted dying in Switzerland, which some people see as an escape, can't be done alone. That's why it's called assisted dying. I'm concerned about the growing amount of content that says things like, "It's cool to live alone and die alone! Just cut people off and move on!" There will inevitably come a moment when you can't solve something by yourself. You realize that even more once you become sick.
Q: You have witnessed more "bad deaths" than most people. What makes a death "bad" or "good"?
I don't want to be found as a decomposed body either. When you look at photos from lonely-death scenes, you automatically think, "I can't die like this." Early in my research, I couldn't eat for a week after seeing those photos. They really are horrific.
Don't think, "What's so bad about a lonely death?" It's painful both for the person who dies that way and for the person who finds them.
Going through the dying process alone is also a bad death. A dying person isn't unconscious the entire time. Imagine realizing that death is approaching and sending out signals, but no one notices, and you don't know when it will end. How terrifying would that be? The pain and fear can also be immense.
Just having someone beside you whisper, "You're doing well. You've done well all this time. Goodbye," can ease the pain and fear. Human beings are that vulnerable.
If you want a good death, first think about what you want your final days to be like. Think about what kind of care and interaction you want around you when death approaches. It will probably make you think you should take better care of the people around you.
Is that calculating? So what if it is? I'll be calculating.
Assessing degrees of social isolation
Song recommends a simple way to assess one's degree of social isolation.
For instance, if someone could not turn to anyone when they become ill and need someone to help with household chores; feel discouraged or depressed and needed someone to talk to; and suddenly needed to borrow a large amount of money, Song considers this a sign of "severe social isolation." If, excluding the third situation, someone cannot think of anyone to turn to in either of the first two, that indicates "general social isolation."
According to the Korean Social Survey, 24.9 percent of Korean adults last year said they had someone who could help with the first situation, while 21.2 percent said they had someone for the second and 48.6 percent for the third. The figures suggest a substantial number of people are at risk of isolation.
Song's advice is to strengthen existing relationships, improve their quality or build new social networks. One place to start could be calling someone who comes to mind and asking how they are doing.
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, was translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.