By Kim Tong-hyung
Older workers are desperately clinging to desks and doorways as they don’t have enough money saved up for their retirement, official figures suggest.
According to data from Statistics Korea and the Ministry of Employment and Labor, economic activity among people aged between 55 and 64 was measured at 63.7 percent last year to represent the highest level since the economic downturn.
Those in that age group accounted for 15 percent of the entire workforce, a dramatic increase from 10.6 percent in 2000 when the pain from the late-1990s financial crisis was still fresh. The age of the average employee increased from 36.2 in 2000 to 39 in 2011.
Earlier government reports showed the number of Koreans working beyond 65 was rising rapidly. Working beyond the retirement age seems to be becoming a necessity in a country where the majority of workers say they have failed to save enough to maintain their current way of life through old age.
Nearly 30 percent of Koreans over 65 were recorded as economically active in 2010, meaning they either had jobs or were looking for one, trailing only Iceland’s 36.2 percent among the industrialized Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations.
Koreans over 65 worked for an average 99 minutes per day that year, significantly longer than people of the same age in the United States (42 minutes), Britain (14 minutes), the Netherlands (10 minutes) and Spain (seven minutes). Only 30 percent of them were on the receiving end of state pensions, which made their ability to fight for paychecks vital.
A survey by the National Pension Service last year showed that about 70 percent of workers over 50 weren’t managing to save for their retirement at all.
``The majority of workers approaching retirement have not saved sufficiently. It’s high time that the country considers extending the working-age period and support Koreans over 60 to remain in employment if they need to,’’ said Hwang Soo-gyeong, a researcher from the state-run Korea Development Institute (KDI).
Separate surveys identify poorly performing pensions, longer life expectancies and not being able to afford to retire as the main reasons more Koreans are opting to remain in the workforce past their mid-60s.
Those willing to work beyond the retirement age can’t afford to be too picky about what they do. A larger proportion of older people appear to be relying on low-paid, casual jobs, while many are listed as self-employed, running small shops or restaurants, according to government reports.
The economic activity rate of workers between 55 and 64, who top the table of the country’s working-age brackets, has moved to between 50 and 60 percent since hitting 59.5 percent in 2000. The rate rose to 62 percent in 2007, the year before the Lehman Brothers collapsed and decimated global markets.
More than 73 percent of people in their 50s were economically active last year, a significant rise from 68.7 percent in 2000, with a large part of the growth driven by women who are being forced back to the grindstone.
For many aging Koreans, it is simple: get on a payroll or deal with poverty.
Korea as a nation has been struggling mightily to provide resources to care for older people. It tops OECD nations in poverty among elderly citizens, which was at 45.1 percent in 2010, more than triple the OECD average of 13.3 percent and roughly double the 20-something percent rates in Japan and the United States.
A high suicide rate is another depressing category in which Korea finds itself atop OECD charts and this seems to have much to do with the harsh realities facing the older generation.
The suicide rate among Koreans aged between 65 and 74 last year was 81.8 per 100,000, starkly higher than the 17.9 of Japan and 14.1 of the United States. The suicide rate among Koreans over 75 was at a staggering 160 per 100,000.
As with many other countries, Korea expects to see the retiring proportion of its population balloon in the coming years. This is feared to escalate pressure on the nation’s fiscal position as retirees will collect pensions and medical benefits that must be paid by a shrinking number of taxpayers.
The government expects the proportion of over-65s to reach 14.3 percent by 2018 and 20 percent in 2026. France is expected to reach the same ratio after 39 years. For the United States and Germany, the corresponding figures stand at 21 and 37 years respectively.