Why are there so many elderly workers in Korea?

The reason is simple: no pension, or too little pension.

In Seoul, South Korea, a mountain of express boxes was pushed into an apartment elevator by a white-haired old man. When the elevator came up, he kept squinting at the small address label on the express box because of presbyopia.

Park Jae-yao 7 1 year-old. According to Korean law, he should have retired 1 1 year, and he is still working. Sorting, delivering and signing? I have to handle more than 100 express delivery a day.

Park Jae-yao's colleague Otawa is similar in age, and the oldest is 78 years old. They work so hard, not to exert their residual heat, but to live.

Money is the biggest reason why I continue to work. ? Park Jae-yao said.

Developed countries are facing a serious problem of aging. South Korea may not be serious, but the quality of life of the elderly may be the worst.

According to the latest data released by the statistics department of South Korea, there are currently 7.38 million elderly people over the age of 65 in this country, accounting for 14.3% of the total population, far lower than Japan's 25.9%. However, half of South Korea's population over 65 is in poverty, and 33. 1% of South Koreans in the 70-74 age group need to work? The average level of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) composed of 35 countries including the United States and Britain is only 15.2%.

? I may work until I'm 80? According to official data released by the Korean government in March, about 4.2 million Koreans over the age of 60 were employed or looking for jobs in 20 17, at least 200,000 more than those in their twenties. In Seoul earlier this year? Silver hair job fair? In fact, more than 30,000 white-haired old people compete for 6,000 jobs together, most of which belong to? Low-end industries, including couriers, security guards, cleaners, oilers and other positions.

Park Jae-yao, 7 1 year-old, is a courier and handles about 100 couriers every day.

The Korean statistics department explained that this is because the elderly in Korea do not have enough pensions to support themselves, so going out to work has become a way to make a living? 197 During the Asian financial crisis, about 2 million Koreans lost their jobs. When the economy recovered, these unemployed people were replaced by younger and cheaper workers.

To make matters worse, South Korea's national pension system only started from 1988, and the penetration rate is not optimistic. In 20 17, there were 665,438+9.44 million elderly people over 0 years old in Korea, of which less than 40% received pensions? Not only do you need to continue to pay 10 years or more, but you also need to prove that there is no child to take care of.

Even if it can be received, the average monthly pension of 325,000 won (about 2,000 yuan) is very meager, less than 1/3 that can maintain the minimum living standard.

Huang Nanhui, a researcher at the Korea Institute of Health and Social Research, said? Many people in their seventies and eighties missed the opportunity to pay old-age insurance, so they can't enjoy pension benefits. Paradoxically, they must solve the problem of providing for the aged by themselves. ?

Our generation is too busy to prepare for retirement. ? Park Jae-yao said that he once started an air-conditioning maintenance company, but went bankrupt on 20 12 because he was not good at management. Two years later, he began to work as a courier, working three days a week, earning about 500 dollars (about 3400 yuan) a month.

At present, there are a large number of elderly practitioners in the service industry in Korea.

Park Jae-yao, who has worked for more than 50 years in his life, said that if his health permits, he may work until he is 80 years old. I am grateful and lucky to have a job (life). ?

Park Jae-yao has three children, but he doesn't want them to be responsible for his old-age care. ? Children have to buy a house in Seoul, and life pressure is also great. I don't want to burden the children. ?

Like Park Jae-yao, are more and more Korean parents active or passive? Choice? On your own. 75-year-old Jin Zhennan is such a lonely old man. His wife died last year. My son works in a media company in Seoul. Faced with mortgage and children's education, I have great economic pressure and have no spare capacity to support my father. Therefore, Jin Zhennan, who used to be a middle school teacher, now has to rely on scavenging to maintain his basic life.

20 14, Seoul, South Korea, an old Korean man asked the government for a pension with an axe.

As Korea, deeply influenced by Confucian culture, the concept of raising children to prevent old age has also been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. There are still some rural towns that give awards to adult children who take care of the elderly. Prizes range from TV to cash.

In the past, the family was an extended self. ? Ji-young Park, a professor of social welfare at Harajuku Shangzhi University, said? Children originally represented the future of all parents, providing them with medical services, financial support and a comfortable life in their later years. Children's success is their success. ?

However, the reality is different. Although South Korea has entered the ranks of developed countries, its economic growth has slowed down in recent years and the gap between the rich and the poor has widened rapidly.

With higher prices and fewer employment opportunities, it is not easy for young people to take care of themselves under the crazy competition.

So what? Raising children for old age? Become the first tradition to be sacrificed. In the past 15, the proportion of children who thought they should support their parents dropped sharply from 90% to 37%. The old people have no choice but to find that although they have invested their life savings in their children's education, the children have been hollowed out by the education of their houses, cars and grandchildren, and they have no time to take care of themselves.

The family system in our society has disintegrated so quickly that it is no longer possible to ask children to support their elderly parents. ? In the best-selling book Please Take Good Care of Mom, the author Shen wrote.

? I don't need dignity. I just want three meals a day, okay? Jin Enjia, 7 1 year-old, sat on the steps of the 3 rd Street subway station in Seoul, scanning the passengers coming and going. Her weather-beaten face was set off like white paper by bright lip gloss and red coat. She put a big bag on the concrete floor next to her, and there was a jingle of glass bottles colliding in the bag. Is she Korean? Barkis girl? Members of? Older women in their fifties, sixties and seventies make a living by selling functional drinks Bacchus to men.

But some of them, at the age of being respected, are also there because of poverty? Sales? Himself: prostitution.

We have been educated since childhood, and dignity and honor are more important than anything else. ? Professor Li, a Korean scholar, is a field investigator. Barkis girl? And you said to her, I'm hungry, I don't need dignity, I don't need honor, I just need three meals a day. ?

Lack of children's care, many Korean elderly people have a bleak life in their later years.

However, more people are unwilling to abandon their dignity. When they can't work or don't want to be a burden to their children, suicide has become the choice of poor elderly people in Korea.

Among all OECD countries, South Korea has the highest suicide rate among the elderly, so that it is called "The Economist"? Shame? .

What is even more frightening is that the suicide rate of the elderly is still rising: in 2000, the number of suicides among the elderly aged 65 and over in Korea was 1 1, which reached 4378 in 20 10, and increased to 739 1 in 20 17.

In other words, in the past year, nearly 20 elderly people committed suicide every day in South Korea.

In the 20 17 presidential election in South Korea, providing for the aged became a key issue.

In the election platform, President Moon Jae in promised to increase the basic pension for the poorest people from 200,000 won (about 65,438,000+200,000 RMB) to 300,000 won (about 65,438,000+800,000 RMB) by 20021year, and to double the job vacancies for elderly workers to 800,000 RMB.

In addition, the government also plans to subsidize the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, provide more subsidies for nursing staff and increase the housing supply for the elderly. However, whether Moon Jae in's reform can really change the plight of the elderly in Korea remains to be tested by time.

After all, even the South Korean government's own expectations say that by 2060, about 90% of the elderly in South Korea will receive universal old-age benefits? What is more difficult to achieve this goal is that the birth rate in South Korea is falling to a new low, with only 7 newborns per 1000 people.