Are Korean elderly people’s pensions very small?

Developed countries are all facing serious aging problems. 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 Korean Statistics Department, there are currently 7.38 million people over the age of 65 in this country, accounting for 14.3% of the total population, which is far lower than Japan's 25.9%. But half of South Korea’s population over 65 years old is in poverty, and among those aged 70 to 74, 33.1% of South Koreans need to work? According to the OECD, which is composed of 35 countries including the United States and the United Kingdom, The average is only 15.2%. ?I might work until I’m 80?

According to official data released by the South Korean government in March, about 4.2 million South Koreans over the age of 60 were employed or looking for work in 2017, one step above those in their 20s There are at least 200,000 more people. At the "Silver Hair Job Fair" in Seoul earlier this year, more than 30,000 gray-haired elderly people competed for 6,000 positions, and most of them belonged to "low-end industries", including couriers, security guards, cleaners, gas stations and other positions.

Park Jae-yao, 71, is a courier and handles about 100 express deliveries every day.

The Korean Statistics Department explained that this is because the elderly in South Korea do not have enough pensions to support themselves, so working outside has become a way to make a living? When the Asian financial crisis occurred in 1997, there were approximately 2 million Koreans lost their jobs as a result. When the economy recovers, these unemployed people are replaced by younger and cheaper workers.

To make matters worse, South Korea’s national pension system only started in 1988, and its penetration rate is not optimistic. In 2017, the elderly population in South Korea over the age of 61 was 9.44 million, of which less than 40% were pensioners. Not only do they need to continue to pay for more than 10 years, but they also need to prove that they have no children to take care of them.

Even if you can receive it, the average monthly pension of 325,000 won (approximately 2,000 yuan) is very meager, less than 1/3 of the minimum living standard.

Huang Nanhui (transliteration), a researcher at the Korea Institute of Health and Social Affairs, said that many people in their 70s and 80s have missed the opportunity to pay for pension insurance and therefore cannot enjoy pensions. Welfare. They have to solve their own pension problems, which is ridiculous. ?Our generation is too busy to prepare for the years after retirement. ?Park Jae-yao said that he once opened an air-conditioning repair company, but it went bankrupt in 2012 due to poor management. Two years later, he started working as a courier, working three days a week, with a monthly income of about US$500 (approximately 3,400 US dollars). Yuan RMB).

Today, there are a large number of elderly employees in the Korean service industry.

Park Jae-yao, who has been working for more than 50 years in his life, said that if his health permits, he may work until he is 80 years old. He can still have a job (to make ends meet). I feel very grateful and lucky for this. . ?The son wants to support but cannot afford to support him

Park Jae-yao has three children, but he does not want them to be responsible for his old age care. ?My children have to buy a house in Seoul, and their life is very stressful. I don’t want to put a burden on them. ?

Similar to Park Jae-yao, more and more Korean parents actively or passively choose to rely on themselves. 75-year-old Kim Jin-nam is such a lonely old man. His wife passed away last year. The son works in a media company in Seoul. Faced with the mortgage loan and children's education, he is under great financial pressure and has no spare time to support his father. So Jin Jinnan, who used to be a middle school teacher, now has to rely on scavenging to maintain his basic life.

In 2014, in Seoul, South Korea, an elderly Korean man carried an ax to ask for his pension from the government department.

As a country deeply influenced by Confucian culture, the concept of raising children to provide for old age has also been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. To this day, some rural towns still award prizes to adult children who care for the elderly, with prizes ranging from TV sets to cash. In the past, family was an extended self. ?Park Ji-young, a professor of social welfare at Sangji University in Wonju, South Korea, said,?Children originally represented the future of their parents, providing them with medical services, financial support, and a comfortable life in their later years. Their children's success is their success. ?

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

With higher prices and fewer job opportunities, it is already difficult for young people to take care of themselves under the crazy competition.

So "raising children to provide for old age" became the first tradition to be sacrificed. Over the past 15 years, the proportion of children who believe their parents should be supported has plummeted from 90% to 37%. Elderly people are helpless to find that although they have invested all their life savings in their children's education, their children have been emptied of their houses, cars, and grandchildren's education, and they no longer have time to take care of themselves. The family system in our society is disintegrating so quickly that children can no longer be expected to support their aging parents. ?In the best-selling book "Please Take Care of Mom," author Shin Kyung-sook wrote this. ?I don’t need dignity, I just want three meals a day?

71-year-old Kim Eun-ja sits on the steps of Jongno 3-ga subway station in Seoul, scanning the people coming and going. Passengers, bright lipstick and bright red jackets make their weathered faces appear as white as paper. She placed a large bag on the concrete floor next to her, and the sound of glass bottles clanging could be heard from inside the bag. She is one of South Korea's "Bacchus Drinking Girls" - elderly women in their 50s, 60s and even 70s who make a living by selling the energy drink Bacchus to men.

But some of them, at an age when they should be respected, because of poverty, are also "promoting" themselves: prostitution. We are taught from an early age that dignity and honor are more important than anything else. When Korean scholar Professor Lee Ho-san (transliteration) was doing fieldwork, a Bacchus wine girl said to her, "I'm hungry. I don't need dignity or honor. I just want three meals a day." ?

Lack of care for children makes many Korean elderly people miserable in their old age.

But more people are unwilling to abandon their dignity. When they are unable to work or do not want to be a burden to their children, suicide has become the choice of poor elderly people in South Korea.

Among all OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, South Korea has the highest suicide rate among the elderly, so much so that it was called a "shame" by The Economist.

What is even more shocking is that the suicide rate among the elderly is still rising: in 2000, the number of elderly people aged 65 and above in South Korea who committed suicide was 1,161, and in 2010 it reached 4,378. In 2017, this number has already grew to 7,391 people.

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

Elderly care has become a key issue in the 2017 South Korean presidential election.

President Moon Jae-in promised in his campaign platform to increase the basic pension of the poorest people from 200,000 won (approximately 1,200 yuan) per month to 300,000 won (approximately 1,200 yuan) per month by 2021. 1,800 yuan) and double the number of job openings for older workers to 800,000.

In addition, the government plans to subsidize Alzheimer's treatment, provide more subsidies for caregivers, and increase the supply of housing for the elderly. However, whether Moon Jae-in’s reforms can truly change the pension dilemma of South Korea’s elderly remains to be tested by time.

After all, even the South Korean government’s own expectations state that it is expected that it will take until 2060 for about 90% of South Korean elderly to receive universal pension subsidies? What makes achieving this goal even more difficult is that South Korea’s birth rate is hitting new lows, with only 7 births per 1,000 people.