[Where do people die?: On the question of dying in institutions]

There is a great discrepancy in society between the number of people that prefer to die within their home and the number of cases where this wish actually becomes reality. The most frequent place of dying in Western societies is not the home but an institution, such as a hospital or nursing home. But what is the actual distribution of places of dying? Can we identify social patterns of dying related to the various places of dying? The article provides a theoretical and empirical overview of place of dying as a social phenomenon. Contemporary discourse on the institutionalization of dying is subjected to critical scrutiny in light of the state of the art of research.