Abstract: China's funeral reform has been pushed more than 60 years, but the funeral institutions did not achieve the ideal institutional objective in the process of implementation, and formal institutions of promoting rural funeral reform were resisted by the informal institutions in rural areas, which made the formal institutions and informal institutions in the rural funeral reform present a certain degree of conflict. Promotion of the transformation of funeral culture and fostering of a new fashion of funeral culture in the new period are of great importance to clarify the internal causes of institutions’ conflicts and actively adjust the formal institutions and informal institutions in the rural funeral reform.

Key words: rural funeral reform, formal Institutions, informal Institutions