KDI and Korea co-hosted symposium “Poverty and Labor in Super-Aged Society,” “We should be cautious about extending the legal retirement age,” and “We need to ease the seniority of the wage system.”
![An elderly job seeker is looking at the job information bulletin board at the Seo-gu Employment and Welfare Plus Center in Mapo-gu, Seoul. [Picture = News1]](https://wimg.mk.co.kr/news/cms/202505/15/news-p.v1.20250515.f573c169cbd3455c83fde2ced6af7daa_P1.jpg)
In order to ensure the stability of employment for the elderly, the retirement age should be extended after re-employment after retirement or reorganization of the wage system that is out of seniority, according to an analysis by state-run institutions.
Concerns have been raised that the uniform extension of the legal retirement age, which some politicians argue, could deprive the vulnerable and young people of employment opportunities.
This opinion was expressed at the “Poverty and Labor in a Super-Aged Society” symposium co-organized by the Korea Development Institute (KDI) and the Bank of Korea on the 15th. Cho Dong-cheol, director of KDI, suggested, “The policy to ease the early retirement structure needs to be promoted by retiring the elderly who have reached their retirement age and then rehire them.”
Lee Chang-yong, governor of the Bank of Korea, said, “Many elderly people are involuntarily participating in the labor market to make a living,” adding, “To solve this problem, it is necessary to ease excessive seniority in the wage system.”
Developed countries that entered super-aged societies before Korea also diversified their employment systems. Representatively, Japan is characterized by institutionalizing labor participation for the elderly through various methods such as retirement age extension, abolition, and re-employment. At the same time, it has made it mandatory for companies to continue hiring until the age of 65, and from 2021, it is imposed as an “effort obligation” to extend employment to the age of 70.
![Bank of Korea Governor Chang Yong (second right of the bottom row) is taking a commemorative photo with key participants, including KDI Director Cho Dong-chul (second left of the bottom row), at the KDI-Bank of Korea joint symposium "Poverty and Labor in Super-Aged Society: Inquiring Policy Direction" held at the Korea Development Institute (KDI) in Sejong City on the 15th. [Photo = Yonhap News]](https://wimg.mk.co.kr/news/cms/202505/15/rcv.YNA.20250515.PYH2025051513950001300_P1.jpg)
In the symposium, it was analyzed that the elderly workforce, who will be over 65 years old in the future, has many assets and high labor capacity unlike previous generations. “The new elderly are not only much healthier and have a higher level of education than in the past, but also have a strong will to work,” Cho said. “The extension of the working period of the elderly must be a change direction to be pursued to make up for the labor shortage caused by the population decline and to reduce the national pension gap for workers.”
However, there were many concerns about the uniform extension of the legal retirement age claimed by some politicians and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions.
Director Cho said, “We need to take a very careful approach to extending the legal retirement age uniformly,” adding, “It is highly likely to amplify social conflicts by causing early retirement of most middle-aged and female workers who are difficult to be beneficiaries and reducing new youth employment.” Governor Lee also explained, “It is important to increase the flexibility of the wage system to minimize the negative impact (of the retirement extension) on the employment of young people.”
Meanwhile, the poverty rate of the elderly is expected to gradually decrease as the number of new seniors who have fully benefited from the high growth period increases.
