Korea leads OECD in senior employment, where aging means working to survive
The Netflix hit drama “The Dream Life of Mr. Kim” is not pure fiction; it is a grim mirror of the reality faced by older Koreans who are pushed out of work years before retirement.
Kim Nak-su, the protagonist, embodies the checklist of middle-class success that many Koreans strive for: a general manager position at a major conglomerate, owning an apartment in Seoul and a son studying at a prestigious university.
Yet he is also the face of a system in which workers are encouraged — and in practice, compelled — to leave their jobs long before the legal retirement age, not because they want to, but because they have no choice.
In the series, Kim is abruptly reassigned from his company’s headquarters to a remote factory, where he is told to “keep quiet, kill time,” and even clean up after dogs — a humiliating demotion many viewers recognized as part of real-life corporate culture in Korea.
His eventual resignation mirrors the experience of the vast majority of Korean workers today.
Only 17.3 percent of retirees leave their main job at the official retirement age. More than 80 percent exit the labor market involuntarily. According to Statistics Korea, the average age at which Korean workers leave their primary job is 52.9, nearly eight years before the nation’s legal retirement age of 60.
Reasons for leaving include recommendations to resign, early retirements and restructurings that account for 13.3 percent, business downturns or reduced workload at 10.9 percent and company closures or suspensions at 7.8 percent.
Those forced out of their main jobs typically slip into the margins of the labor market.
Regardless of education or decades of experience, many are funneled into nonregular, temporary or daily labor. Workers find themselves pushed into deskilled roles such as low-wage service work, menial manual labor or unstable self-employment.
This is revealed through Kim Nak-su’s fictional trajectory. After resigning, Kim cycles through a string of precarious jobs, including as a delivery driver, chauffeur-for-hire and other gig roles.
Kim, like many Koreans, does not stop working after retirement, not by choice, but by necessity.
Under current law, Koreans born after 1969 receive the national pension only at age 65. For someone like Kim, leaving the workforce at 52 or 53 creates a decadelong income gap with no meaningful safety net.
Experts call this decadelong period the "income crevasse" — the gap between losing one's main job and receiving the national pension, during which most people have no stable income.
That gap is widening as the country rapidly ages.
South Korea became a superaged society this year, with 65-and-older citizens making up 20.3 percent of the population. Yet despite its demographic shift, the nation shows no sign of older workers stepping back from the labor force.
Instead, seniors are working at the highest rate in the developed world.
South Korea’s elderly employment rate reached 37.3 percent in 2023, nearly triple the OECD average of 13.6 percent and significantly higher than Japan, a country already known for older workers at 25.3 percent.
The reason lies not in the desire to work longer, but in the inability to retire.
A survey by Statistics Korea found that older Koreans hope to work until an average age of 73.4. But when asked why, more than half said they needed the income to cover basic living expenses. Only 36 percent cited enjoyment of work, and just 4 percent said they simply wanted something to do.
Yet, the public pension system offers little relief. The average national pension payment in 2024 amounted to about 660,000 won ($450) per month — barely half the country’s minimum subsistence cost for a single-person household.
"Unlike Western countries, where pension maturity encourages retirement, Korea’s meager payouts force seniors to keep working even after they begin receiving benefits," Kim Seon-hee, a labor studies professor at Korea University, said.
Another problem lies in the mismatch between legal retirement and pension eligibility.
"While the statutory retirement age is 60, the pension payout age is rising. Those born between 1961 and 1964 begin receiving benefits at 63, while those born in 1969 or later must wait until 65," managing director at Mirae Asset Kim Dong-yeop said.
"With the average worker pushed out of their main job at 52.9, this leaves a gap of at least 10 years between leaving the workforce and receiving financial support. So for those who have to retire soon, a life without a stable income can be scary," he added.
The government encourages older workers to stay employed, yet its own pension structure sends conflicting signals.
Korea’s “earnings test” reduces pension benefits by up to 50 percent for those who earn above a certain threshold while receiving payments. Critics have long argued that the measure discourages work and penalizes those who need income the most.
Experts say policy responses must shift away from survival-driven labor and toward creating conditions where seniors can work on their own terms — not because they must, but because they choose to.
For now, however, many older Koreans find themselves in the same shoes as Kim Nak-su.
"I saw the drama, and I know it is fiction, but its portrait of a middle-aged man forced out of white-collar work and into grueling, low-wage jobs rings painfully true. I cannot be assured I'm not gonna be him in five years," said 48-year-old Choi Gwan-joong, who works at a big IT company.
jychoi@heraldcorp.com
