No silver lining for Koreans' silver years

An elderly woman distributes leaflets in Seoul in this file photo. This part-time job is popular among the elderly. / Korea Times file

By Kim Ji-soo

Around lunchtime, especially at or near subway stations in Seoul, Korea, people can often see elderly women hand out leaflets promoting businesses. It's a challenge to get passersby to accept those leaflets, but Cho Sook-ja, who distributes them near Seoul City Hall, is not discouraged by people's responses.

"It's a job. I have to make a living," said Cho, 61, Tuesday. "You cannot be embarrassed or shy about it."

Cho, who resides in Junggye-dong, northeastern Seoul, has had operations on her waist and spine, but her husband is too ill to work and her two children barely manage to live on their own, she said. Thus, she holds these part-time jobs of distributing leaflets, with each job taking place in one location in the city and lasting two hours a day for an estimated pay of about 25,000 won.

When she spoke to The Korea Times, she had been working nonstop for two hours handing out leaflets for a new gym; three of her team members had dispersed to nearby locations to distribute their leaflets.

Has she heard about how Korea has the highest rate of relative poverty among the elderly, in particular those aged 66 and older, among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member nations?

"I don't know," she said. "But I live a hard life, I guess you can say. I have worked all my life, and I am still working."

Her colleague rushed to her post when asked if she could be interviewed; she declined to speak about her job. "I am old, old, over 70 and not yet 80. I live with my children, but I do this for my allowance, pocket money," was all she said. "How can an elderly person just sit at home these days?"

The job looked easy enough at first, but standing for two hours outside, exposed to the chilly November wind while avoiding people coming from all directions can discourage even an experienced leaflet distributor. "After a while, the arms hurt and the pain comes from around the waist," Cho said.

As Korea increasingly heads toward an aging society, those who are able to work are regarded as lucky.

A recent OECD report showed 42.7 percent of elderly Koreans aged 66 through 75 live in relative poverty, and 60.2 percent of those aged 76 or older do. The figures are both about four times higher than the OECD average, and the highest among the 38 OECD nations. Relative poverty refers to the percentage of those who make less than 50 percent of the nation's median wage, which is around 4.5 million won for a four-member family.

An elderly man surveys a programs posting at a community center in Seoul in this file photo. / Korea Times file

Further, these low OECD rankings for Korea have persisted for more than a decade now. The downside of Korea's dynamic rise has been a fast-progressing society that opened a watershed of social changes, including in employment and social values, and a rapidly rising life expectancy.

"The disappearance of quality jobs for the elderly after retirement or even for those who retire in their early 50s, in particular after the 1998 Asian financial crisis, amid Korean's longer life expectancy and changing social norms, has exacerbated poverty for the elderly in Korea," said Kim Tae-wan, research fellow at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.

Today, South Koreans are expected to live for 83.1 years, about 20 years longer than it was in 1970. While Korean firms have long assured lifetime employment, in the current business landscape, they expect workers to retire at 60 or earlier or otherwise be pushed out.

With regard to social values, Koreans no longer think they have to live with their aging parents. In 2002, 70 percent of Koreans believed family members should care for aging parents, but that figure has gone down to 30.6 percent last year, according to a report by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.

The Moon Jae-in administration has taken steps to increase its support for the elderly in the lower 70 percent income bracket, including by increasing the basic elderly pension from the current 200,000 won to 300,000 by the end of his five-year term in 2021. Still, the new amount would barely cover basic living costs. Korea implemented the National Pension System in 1988, which became universal in 1998. The amount and coverage do not align with the needs of Korea's fast-aging society, where 14 percent of the population is over 65 as of August this year.

The figure is expected to go up to 20 percent in 2025.

"Korea's relative poverty rate shows if one does not prepare aggressively for post-retirement, it will be easy to slip into poverty," Kim said, which he says is exactly what is happening with Korea's baby-boomer generation, referring to those born between 1955 and 1963.

"We need to come up with better quality jobs and raise the sources of alternative income after retirement through pension or other funds," he also said.

Asked just how long she will continue to work, Cho said, "I don't know." An elderly woman distributes leaflets in Seoul in this file photo. This part-time job is popular among the elderly. / Korea Times file