After watching the old poverty-stricken videos in Japan and South Korea, I worked overtime and worked harder

only hopes that by then, there will be more happy "Chinese aunts".

Text / Ba Jiuling (WeChat official account: Wu Xiaobo channel)

After the news of "progressively delayed retirement" spread like wildfire, the post-80s and post-90s who were "precisely hit" quickly made up a joke:

passed the 60th birthday Sometimes, I have to ask for leave with the leader.

is heart-wrenching and absurd. In fact, retirement at the age of 65 is the system implemented by most western developed countries, and some countries even retire later. Historically, delayed retirement seems inevitable.

But I still can’t help but ask a question: How can we confidently say that we can still comfortably stay in our original positions at the age of 60? If

thinks it is even more absurd, chatgpt has terrified the employees, and Japan and South Korea, the only developed countries in East Asia, have already set a "demonstration" - they are facing a cruel reality: old age poverty and bankruptcy.

South Korea "retires forever"

Let me talk about a Korean movie "Miss Dionysus", the English name is "the bacchus lady". The bacchus in

's title is not alcohol, but a popular functional health drink in Korea.

In this film, Baojiashi becomes a prop throughout the film: the heroine Suying, who is nearly 70 years old, wears beautiful lip gloss, and asks the old man walking in a hidden corner of the park: "Would you like a bottle of Baojia?" Is it suitable?"

If the other party is interested, the two will go to the hotel together, take a shower, drink a drink, and then complete the "deal". She earns 40,000 won (about 200 yuan). The scene of

is not fabricated out of thin air, but drawn from real Korean society. Middle-aged and elderly groups like Pixel Ying are called "bacchus ladies" by Western media. This movie exposes the dark corners of poverty among the elderly in South Korea.

Before 2013, the South Korean government stipulated that 60 years old was the statutory retirement age, but in fact many employees could not enjoy the treatment from normal working to retirement age. The competition in the Korean workplace is fierce, and the "sequence of seniority" is serious, so there is a saying of "five or six thieves": the younger generation thinks that the older generation occupies the position, and if they do not retire at the age of 56, they are no different from robbers.

Under tremendous public opinion and social pressure, the average retirement age of Korean social workers has been advanced to 53 years old. What does early retirement mean? Means the possibility of living an undignified life ahead of time.

Korean pension system is divided into basic pension, public pension, enterprise pension and personal insurance. Public annuities only cover less than 22 million people, while enterprise annuities are generally only available to large enterprises. It is estimated that nearly 4 million retirees in South Korea can only receive basic pensions, and this money is only 200,000 won (about 1,186 yuan) per month. Many retirees have had to keep working in order to survive, leading to an increase in South Korea's average effective retirement age to 71. Since

was "dissuaded" from his original position, it is a bit unrealistic to get a job with the same treatment before retirement. Most of the retirees who have re-entered the workplace are engaged in dirty and tiring tasks that young people do not want to do, such as express delivery, cleaning, dishwashing, and driving taxis. These low-cost labor forces are called "silver-haired economy", which sounds somewhat ironic.

But for this group of people who give up their dignity and seek means of subsistence, "economy" has nothing to do with them. More of them are on the road to poverty due to low income and high medical expenses.

In April 2020, Japan's NHK TV station produced a documentary called "Korea: Old People Picking up Cardboard Boxes". In the film, Li Zhongren, a 70-year-old man living in Incheon City, searched cardboard boxes before dawn, but only got back $3 a day at work, which was not enough to pay the apartment management fee; another 78-year-old grandmother Xu Shunzi, Cartons weighing more than 300 kilograms have to be moved.

nhk also made statistics and found that for every 100 elderly Koreans, one lives by picking up waste, and more than half of them are women.

According to a survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2021, among developed countries, the poverty rate of people over the age of 65 in South Korea topped the list at 43.4%, while that in European and American countries was basically only about 20%. At the same time, the suicide rate of the elderly in South Korea also ranks first. This phenomenon was called "South Korea's shame" by The Economist magazine.

if we go back to the"Miss Dionysus", you will find that the film nakedly exposed this layer of scars: three old people who lost their dignity chose to commit suicide with the help of the heroine Suying, and the heroine was jailed for this. But she is even willing to go to jail, at least three meals a day can be guaranteed, at least she doesn't have to trade for a whole day but can only make enough money to buy medicine.

The tragic song of Japan's "Block Generation"

The experience and fate of Korean Soyoung in his later years are actually not uncommon in Japan.

A few years ago, Osaka, Japan arrested the famous "Ninja Thief" Mitsuaki Furukawa, suspected of participating in 250 theft cases in the Osaka area, and he was already 74 years old. According to statistics, one out of every five prisoners in Japan is over 65 years old.

This group of old people usually steal rice, fruit, cold medicine and other inexpensive items. Some old people will even take the stolen goods to the police station to surrender themselves, so as to get a 2-year sentence as quickly as possible. According to Japanese police data, a quarter of the elderly criminals over the age of 65 will re-offend two years after being released from prison, and 40% of the elderly are repeat offenders who have committed the same crime more than 6 times.

"Fortune" magazine once asked a question: If it was the price of freedom, in exchange for free food, shelter and medical care, would you be willing?

The Japanese old man answered "yes".

Because even if you shrink your clothes and go on a diet, the basic pension of a retired old man is only 780,000 yen, which will create a gap of 50,000 yen with the average cost of living. Once in prison, everything is free, and the Japanese government will spend 840,000 yen for each elderly person, while their pensions can be accumulated for another two years.

So in Japan, prisons have become large nursing homes. For example, in Fuchu Prison in Tokyo, inmates can do arithmetic problems, answer quizzes and play origami games in an effort to prevent dementia. And as the number of elderly criminals continues to rise, Japanese prisons have had to expand and increase nursing staff.

There are two reasons why retired people line up to commit crimes in Japan: loneliness and poverty. In the past few years, two popular NHK documentaries have resonated, one is called "No Fated Society" and the other is called "Old People Drifting Society".

"No Fated Society" describes that many people in contemporary Japan left their hometowns when they were young. In their long life and career, they were basically insulated or semi-insulated from their parents, relatives, and children. died alone. The so-called "no fate" means that a person loses all fate connections, that is, geography, blood and workplace ties.

Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications once released a data that 60% of the elderly live separately from their children, and 4% of the elderly have no children and live alone all their lives.

In "The Old Man's Drifting Society", the producer uses the "Block Generation" to describe this group of impoverished and even bankrupt elderly people: they are the post-war "baby boomer" generation in Japan, who love work and unite to support Japan. economy. Now, with the decline of the Japanese economy, they have turned into a piece of discarded iron and sank into the sea together.

This film also gave birth to a familiar and desperate word: the old queen goes bankrupt. Compared with the Japanese, the miserable life of the Koreans in their later years is just a replica.

The fundamental reason is that pensions cannot keep up with the cost of social survival. Therefore, delaying retirement and issuing a large amount of national debt have become a delaying strategy. In 1986, Japan implemented a 60-year-old retirement system, while before it was 55 years old, it was extended to 65 years old 20 years later. By 2021, Japan will implement the "Stability Law for the Elderly", stipulating that companies are obliged to ensure employment opportunities for employees until they are 70 years old. Statistics show that one out of every four Japanese people over the age of 65 is active on the job.

In order to encourage delayed retirement, the Japanese government also stipulates that for each month of deferred pension, 0.7% can be added to the statutory pension. Even so, the Japanese government has repeatedly lowered pensions.

In 2014, a 71-year-old man set himself on fire in a Shinkansen train in protest against pension cuts. Before self-immolation, he gave all the money on his body to a female passenger in her 60s.

Like South Korea, due to the lack of food and dignity in life, the suicide rate of the elderly in Japan is also quite high. From 2009 to 2019, about 208,000 middle-aged and elderly people committed suicide in Japan. As recently as 2021, a Japanese scholar made sensational remarks. He said that the solution to "ageing aging" is very clear, that is, the elderly collectively perform seppuku and "sacrifice their lives for the country".

Dong YaqiThe curse of miracles

The poverty and bankruptcy of the retired elderly seem to have become the curse of the developed countries in East Asia. So, what is the commonality of the curses in Japan and South Korea? Will a new round of curse befall the third East Asian country? In addition to the fertility and pension issues, there are two perspectives that can be explored.

Number one, the obsession with real estate. Japan's postwar economy rose rapidly. In the 1960s, the Japanese government put forward the ideology of "National Income Doubling Plan" and "100 million total middle class". At the same time, the Japanese pension system was born. After the signing of the "Plaza Accord" in the 1980s, the yen appreciated, and Japanese hearts swelled At the same time, it also gave birth to the real estate bubble.

In 1991, the bubble was punctured, and the "Block Generation" became the successors, and even continued to repay the loan after retirement. And it was under the lifetime employment system that the Japanese employees during the bubble period thought that they Always the middle class (middle class), lack of preparation and planning for the upcoming changes.

South Korea is also a country bound by real estate. 2008 is a symbolic year when the current pension system in South Korea began to operate, but this group has created the "Miracle of the Han River" However, many elderly people spend a lot of their savings on buying houses and buying houses for their children. As a result, only 14.2% of the elderly in Korea have savings.

According to statistics, 90% of the assets of the 40- to 50-year-old group in South Korea (pre-retirement population) are They are locked in real estate, and they are not fully prepared for the elderly. The high housing prices in South Korea (especially Seoul, where the population is concentrated) have brought tremendous pressure on young people, who are unable to take care of their elderly parents, thus creating a vicious circle.

Second , the Confucian cultural system in East Asia was impacted. The organizational system of Japanese and Korean companies is famous for its "lifetime employment system" and "sequence of seniority", which has the characteristics of Confucian culture. However, after the retirement of the previous generation, "the social economic system and corporate culture have not been successfully integrated. Transform into a system that is sustainable enough and can treat young people well.” Young people can’t see hope, and there is a mourning culture with low desires in Japan, and they choose to lie down, eat the old, and not have children. The concept of "respecting the elderly" is gradually lost in South Korea due to the strong opposition between the younger generation and the older generation in the workplace. The "filial piety" (family care for the elderly) under the Confucian cultural system is actually based on the premise of rural areas and the short life expectancy of people. Ted Fishman believes that "these traditional operations are carried out under the condition that the average life expectancy is no more than 35 years old, and it is relatively easy for children to fulfill their filial duties." Today, when the life expectancy of the elderly has become longer, we can see There are many news stories about children murdering old and sick old people, and old people committing suicide because of illness.

On the other hand, urbanization and the subdivision of social division of labor often isolate the relationship between the old people and their children in a geographical sense, while in the rural economy Under the circumstances, it is more convenient to maintain relationships and fulfill filial piety.

Like China, Koreans and Japanese all uphold the concept of family care for the elderly, but later found that the next generation is the object to be raised. Misjudgments lead to a lack of pension preparations. When children and pensions are unreliable, retired people can only come out to work again.

4

In 2019, European and American countries included the word Chinese dama (Chinese aunt) into the dictionary, which originated from Wall Street When shorting gold, "Chinese aunt" rushed to the counter to buy low-priced gold, which shocked the world. "Chinese aunt" Seemingly glamorous, he has money and leisure after retirement, and is addicted to square dancing. While being ridiculed, they are also envied.

It’s true that the parents went through the age of starvation, worked hard all their lives and finally retired. Now they have a pension of about 4,000 yuan, have their own entertainment and social circle, and the medical insurance can cover most of the medical expenses. This is the country’s responsibility. progress.

However, unlike Japan and South Korea, China still has a rural population of more than 500 million. After the implementation of the "New Rural Insurance", the actual level of pensions paid to farmers is an average of 188 yuan per month, which is only equivalent to 5.26% of urban workers' pensions. For the vast number of farmers, the concept of raising children to support their old age is deeply rooted. They are not ready for retirement, or even have the concept of "retirement". They really "retire until death".

China today still faces the problem of low urban birth rate. If we replace Japan and South Korea with "China" in the analysis of the narrative of the elderly returning to poverty in East Asia, it seems that there is no sense of disobedience. When the post-80s and 90s retire, it is really hard to say whether the "silver-haired economy" will change from a new industry to a cheap labor force. todayWhen delaying retirement, medical insurance reform, chatgpt, etc. punch us in the face, the only thing can do is to make a pension plan starting today.

only hope that by then, there will be more happy "Chinese aunts".

audio planning | Xu Tao

audio operation | Chang Xiujuan | chief editor | Zheng Yuanmei