Who's fault is this?
There is even a coughing saying that if Japan dies to an old man, it is equivalent to saving three young people!
Japan's aging is well known, so what about its neighbor, South Korea?
When one thinks of retirement in South Korea, the characters of grandmothers in Korean dramas come to mind. They live in their son's house, have the authority of the head of the family, call on their daughters-in-law from time to time and listen to their grandchildren's gossip, and are the envy of everyone.
It wasn't until we saw older people doing manual labor in South Korea's big cities that we realized the real world wasn't so beautiful.
In South Korea, there are 4.2 million elderly people either working or looking for work, more than the number of young people in their twenties.
A comparison of the retirement lives of Korean and Chinese seniors reveals that when Chinese seniors are retired, Korean seniors are working; when Chinese seniors are dancing, Korean seniors are working; and when Chinese seniors are bringing up their grandchildren, Korean seniors are still working.
This is not the life of workaholics when they get old, but the late life of a generation sacrificed in an aging country.
The legal retirement age in South Korea is 60. And in reality, people work on average until they are 71 before they really take a break. Retirement age is just the beginning of finding work again.
In Seoul's "Silver Hair Job Fair", which is more lively than the Shanghai Parents' Matchmaking Corner, more than 30,000 gray-haired seniors are looking for a second chance at the workplace. Most of the 6,000 jobs they are competing for belong to "low-end industries" that they never thought they would be in before they retired, including couriers, security guards, janitors and gasoline pumps.......
A 76-year-old man named Kang interviewed for the hottest courier position, and found that he needed to learn how to send text messages in order to make deliveries. Discovered he needed to learn to text to make deliveries and was a little worried about whether he would be selected.
And 77-year-old moncler outlet store Li applied for a job as a garbage collector. He thought he would be able to move in with his four sons when he retired, but he was slow to wait for an invitation. He had no choice but to put his head down and put in his first resume.
A brunette jobseeker turned out to be looking for a job for his 63-year-old father. The son thought it would be better for his father to go out and work rather than stay at home, and the old man refused to show his face at the job fair because he thought it would be too humiliating to look for a job.
In South Korea today, retired seniors have become a major force in the labor market. One in five cab drivers is over 65, and almost all residential security guards are over 60.
At the garbage sorting and recycling plant, the bosses are most worried about recruiting workers because of the poor working conditions. Just as young people are retreating, it is also the 60-year-old man who, undaunted by the unpleasant smell, and the danger of getting his hand stuck in the glass, took the plunge and walked onto the assembly line.
Since people over 65 can ride the subway for free, delivery by subway has also become an option for many. In China, it's the young and strong courier boys running around in the streets, while in South Korea, it's the gray-haired courier moncler outlet in the subway.
South Korea has a specialized silver-haired courier company that recruits the elderly to deliver lighter goods.
Park Jae-yo, 71, has been a courier for four years.
It's not so much that he wants to do something for his country, but after his small company went bankrupt, he couldn't make ends meet with his pension, let alone achieve his goal of buying his kids a suite in Seoul.
So moncler jackets outlet Park lived a regular part-time life, handling 100 packages a day, working three days a week, and earning a salary of 3,000 yuan a month.
His goal is to work until his body can't take it anymore. "Our generation is too busy to live just to survive and raise our children in these crazy times, and we don't even dare to think about retirement."
Only on his seven-day annual vacation does moncler parka experience a real retirement, traveling to Jeju Island with his wife.
Park is considered a normal age in the company, with the oldest coworker being 78 years old.
Since life expectancy in South Korea has reached 81 years, 10 years more than the actual retirement age, some optimistic moncler outlet store moncler jackets flirted with the idea that it is good that South Koreans are living longer, and that there are still 10 years left for us to spend at our own discretion.
Retirement equals bankruptcy
When it comes to this generation of Korean seniors, it is actually the generation most qualified to rest. That's because the miracle of Korea's economic takeoff is the result of their hard work.
But the ability to take a break depends not on contribution, but on having money. Poverty has become the biggest reason to keep working. According to statistics, the poverty rate of South Korea's over-65s is as high as 49.6%, the highest percentage in the developed world.
Although the government started the pension system in 1988, the pension is not something you can receive whenever you want. Not only do you need to pay consistently for more than 10 years, you also need to prove that you don't have children to take care of. The government tacitly recognizes that elderly people with children have been cared for by their families since time immemorial. The result is that only one-third of the elderly get a pension.
Even if they are eligible for a pension, it doesn't mean they can enjoy their lives without worrying, because the pension is a pittance in the face of skyrocketing prices. According to statistics, the average monthly pension for South Koreans over 60 years old is about 2,000 yuan, less than one-third of the minimum standard of living.
As many elderly people face a lack of food, the government and NGOs have opened canteens for the elderly, offering free food.
Those who have children think they can count on their children if not the country. After all, according to Confucian tradition, raising children is the right thing to do. Even if you don't have the majesty of the head of the family like in Korean dramas, you can still be a pleasant grandparent in your children's home.
The world is changing fast. South Korea is getting richer, but the economy is not growing as fast as it used to. That means higher prices, and fewer jobs. It's not easy for young people to take care of themselves when there's so much frantic competition.
And so the tradition of "raising children to provide for the elderly" is the first to be sacrificed. Over the past 15 years, the percentage of children who think they should support their parents has plummeted from 90% to 37%. The old people helplessly found that although the life savings are invested in the children's education, but the children have been house, car, grandchildren's education empty, no longer have time to take care of their own. Seoul's retired seniors lament, "The family is disintegrating, and as a result, we will die alone."
It's like trying to make it to the last level of the game of life and being ready to enjoy your old age in peace, only to suddenly fall into the hidden levels of HARD mode. The level in front of you is getting tougher and tougher, and your body and energy are not what they used to be.
People finally realized that what was waiting for them was not retirement, but layoff.
A large number of older people who have retired from the corporate world are realizing that the middle class, when they retire, may be worse off than the interns. An older man who used to work for a well-known consortium said it was hard for him to get a job as an intern after retirement, but his salary was a quarter lower than others.
Kim Min-soo, 69, feels the same way. Before he retired, he worked as an engineer in a factory, earning 24,000 yuan a month, but his pension and his partner together amounted to less than 4,000 yuan, which is not enough for a fraction of what he used to earn. What's even more desperate is that in Seoul, where prices are soaring, the minimum cost of living is about 12,000 yuan a month.
Because his previous salary was spent on his four children's education and he had no savings in his pocket, Mr. Kim's life went back to before he was born.
In order to improve the situation, Mr. Jin found a new job in a small company. The first time I saw this, I was able to find a way to get my hands on a new job, and I was able to find a way to get my hands on a new job, and I was able to find a way to get my hands on a new job. One sentence made moncler outlet store the last of his stubbornness go out the window.
Work is the last resort
Relying on the government and relying on their sons and daughters has become a fool's errand, and in the end, many people choose to rely on their jobs to desperately try to survive.
Ms. Yoon pushes a rusty wheelbarrow around Seoul every day, picking up scraps from the streets. Because she has five children, she does not receive a government pension. But she prefers to work alone rather than burden her children.
Every day when she came home, Ms. Yoon felt her back hurting and no part of her body was comfortable, and she never mentioned it to her children.
"It hurts all over when I come home!"
But being more understanding doesn't change the loneliness of life.
All five children moved to other cities after they got married, and occasionally they would come together to see her, but they wouldn't stay long, and then they would leave in a hurry.
Her grandchildren didn't like going to her house either, complaining that there were cockroaches in the house. To make her grandchildren happy, Ms. Yin would give them some pocket money. This even aggravated the grandchildren's unhappiness because the grandmother only gave 1,000 won (6 yuan) when they were expecting 10,000 won (60 yuan).
Faced with an unpopular family life, Ms. Yoon has increasingly taken to picking up garbage as a pleasure. Because at least, every day, she can chat about the weather with her colleagues at the garbage station.
The same goes for Mrs. Kim, who lives out alone so as not to bother her children.
She has already planned to work until she can't do it anymore, and then take all her savings to the hospital to spend the rest of her life in peace. None of this, of course, is intended to be told to the child.
Mrs. Kim is only willing to pay about 12 yuan for a bowl of soup when she's really hungry.
If anyone is going to say that these bleak twilight years are the evils of aging, then sadly this is just the beginning of South Korea's aging. Currently, people over 65 make up 13% of South Korea's total population, and by 2060 the proportion will become 40%.
No one is immune to an aging wave of gray-haired waves. For the next generation, steeped in middle-class anxiety, the gray-haired manual laborers of the city look like a prophecy.
As one middle-aged cleaner put it:
"Looking at all these old people who can't retire, it's clear how my generation will age."
Referenced Articles
[1]Raising Children Can't Protect The Elderly in South Korea, Who Are on a Desperate Path, CHOE SANG-HUN, NYTimes.com
[2]Retirement Can Be Elusive in South Korea, SU-HYUN LEE , The New York Times
[3]Why is Retirement Mandatory in South Korea at 60? Zhan Xiaohong, New People's Weekly
[4]When you're old, would you rather live in China, Japan or South Korea, surging town halls, Wang Yanrui/founder of the Beijing Leling Elderly Social Work Service Center
[5]South Korea's inequality paradox: long life, good health and poverty, The Guardian
[6]South Korea's inequality paradox: long life, good health and poverty, The Guardian, The Guardian good health and poverty, The Guardian, Justin McCurry, 2017
[6]Poor and on their own, South Korea's elderly who will ' work until they die', CNA, Lam Shushan
[7]Elderly prostitutes reveal dark side of South Korea's rise, By Associated Press
September 25, 2015