The elderly in Japan want to continue working after retirement, why don t the young people agree?

Living to work until old age used to be a kind of heart, but now it is a kind of "good fortune".

In Japan, where the world's population is aging, it is considered lucky that you will be able to find a job at the age of 70. According to a survey this year, nearly 40% of Japanese people have added working until they are 70 on their wish list.

No one wants to work until the age of 70 and then retire, which is too cruel for 996 workers, but an even more brutal problem is often tacitly ignored in the crusade against delayed retirement:

We who are worried about losing our jobs at the age of 35, why do we think that as long as we want to do it, we can still find a job at the age of 70?

If the elderly want to continue to work after retirement, I am afraid that the young people will be the first to refuse.

The elderly should commit suicide en masse, or commit suicide by seppuku together. ”

Yale University's Japanese scholar Yusuke Narita's callous rhetoric is gaining widespread support among young Japanese, with supporters saying

The reason the third baby boom didn't happen was that we kept jobs for the swelling elderly population at the expense of the young. ”

In a country with an aging population of 29 percent, the intergenerational tension between the elderly and the young is intensifying, with young people believing that it is the elderly who are reluctant to give up their jobs that deprive young people of their future and happiness.

In every company, looking up, there seems to be an "old man" at the end of the promotion path.

They are well paid, do nothing every day, and prefer to point fingers. Although most of them did not have any special talents or great achievements, and only rose to high positions year after year by virtue of the seniority system, they had already mastered a set of words to make young people shut up.

For example, to give you a feeling, "husband and wife surname" is the most concerned topic of young people nowadays, which refers to the wife retains her surname after marriage and does not change her husband's surname.

In an online TV program, several young people planned to discuss the necessity of the "husband and wife surname system" with a former parliamentarian, but in a few words, they were taken away by a set of "hair extensions" by Mr. Parliamentarian in his 80s.

YOUNG: "We want to introduce a system of surnames for couples, but LDP MPs ignore this issue. ”

MP: "Young people's issues are not taken seriously because you don't come to vote." ”

Young man: "But why should we vote if there are no parliamentarians who speak to young people?" ”

MP: "No one speaks for young people because young people don't express themselves strongly. ”

YOUNG MAN: "We expressed it strongly, for example, ...... the system of surnames for couples”

Councillor: "Ah, it's ...... trifle”

YOUNG: "We found that most of the people who advocate 'not changing the existing system' are older politicians. ”

Councillor: "The elderly are not something you can speculate so shallowly, the elderly live so long, and they have experienced a lot more than you......”

In Japan, "old men who don't work" are also called "old men" and are hated by young people like pests.

Once, retirement at the age of 60 was the end of the "old harm", and every old man who has eaten up the dividends of the annual merit sequence system will naturally retire at the age of 60. However, the continuous postponement of the retirement age has caused this natural metabolism to be postponed indefinitely.

In 2013, the retirement age in Japan was raised to 65 in principle, and companies need to provide employees with the opportunity to work until the age of 65. In 2021, the retirement age was pushed back by 5 years to 70.

This means that the "old man who does not work" in the enterprise will occupy the top ecological niche of the annual merit sequence system for ten more years. And for young people waiting to move, it's like a bolt from the blue.

More recently, this disgust has been spreading to more ordinary seniors, so much so that having a job after retirement has become a sin.

The elderly already have a retirement pension to receive, so why should they come and compete with young people for jobs? Young people don't have jobs, who will provide for them? ”

However, despite the scolding of young people, more and more elderly people are returning to work after retirement.

Anyone who has traveled to Japan must have felt that silver-haired workers in Japan are very, very common. In taxis, restaurants, from Tokyo to the countryside, you can see wrinkled faces and grandmothers who are still working.

In fact, there are 9.12 million elderly workers in Japan in 2023, and the number of elderly workers has increased for 19 consecutive years. Currently, there are 13 elderly people for every 100 Japanese workers, including those between the ages of 60 and 70 and those over 70 years old.

In the imagination of young people, the old people have taken advantage of the dividends of the times. Born after the war, they amassed wealth during the economic boom and relied on a pension to keep them in recession.

But if that's the case, what old man wouldn't want to spend his days in idleness?

The reality is that happy old men in high positions and doing nothing are only a minority after all, and more people must rely on continuing to work to survive.

After I retired, I worked six or seven jobs. ”

Mr. Tokunaga from Kagoshima is 72 years old and looks like he is still in good spirits. On the broad dark face, there was a short circle of silver stubble, and the voice was full of the roughness characteristic of the Satsuma people.

If you don't work, you won't have anything to eat, and it's all because you were too playful when you were young. ”

Faced with the question of why he continued to work, Tokunaga rubbed his stubble and smiled. Before his retirement, he worked as an administrator at a machine parts factory, and after his retirement, he worked as a community volunteer, care driver, security guard, ramen shop clerk, and dispatch employee.

Each job is not long in time, but there are almost no gaps, because Tokunaga's retirement pension is only 80,000 yen (about 3,827 yuan). After removing the 60,000 yen rent, only 20,000 yen is left for living expenses, which is not enough to cover the cost of living in Japan, where prices are high.

So Tokunaga had to forget about his retirement status and continue to look for a job: "I can do more if I can now, and there will be more and more time when I can't do it in the future." ”

He and I met in the Japanese conversation app "sail", a language platform paid by foreigners to communicate with Japanese people. Tokunaga is honing his skills on the platform for his new job, where he is hired as a pick-up driver at a local hotel, where he needs to practice some simple conversations with foreign guests.

I was also a little nervous, and I had to speak English, Chinese, and Korean with customers, but compared to my previous job, this one was much easier, thanks to the introduction of the town. ”

Tokunaga now earns 100,000 yen a month for five hours a day, five days a week, which is not a high income, but it is enough to be satisfied with the harder work before, after all, physical strength no longer supports more intense labor.

In a society where even young people are struggling to find work, older people are certainly unlikely to be more popular than younger workers. On the contrary, the aging workforce is like expired food, and when the time comes, it will be labeled with a price reduction.

The income is almost off a cliff, and once the age of 60 is reached, even if you are not fired by the company, your salary will be discounted immediately. According to a survey by Toyo Keizai Weekly, 39% of elderly workers will have their wages reduced by 41-50% after retirement, and another 23% will have their wages reduced by more than 50%.

Even if it is still the same position, it is still the same job content, and you will no longer get the same salary.

And those who are forced to leave their original jobs, like Tokunaga, must find a second career direction in the unknown sea.

This is often very different from what they originally did, because there are not many job opportunities for the elderly.

Life is full of possibilities, but for the elderly, the possibilities are shrinking. Strong mental and physical work is no longer welcome to the elderly, and they can only squeeze into the corners that young people can't look down on, just like migrant workers.

Excluding the exceptions of doctors, teachers, etc., who can apply professional skills to continue employment, most of the elderly can only choose light manual labor-intensive jobs, such as masseurs, gardeners, childcare workers, cleaners, security guards, or jobs related to the elderly group, home care workers, health managers, elderly care consultants, nursing care drivers, ......

These industries, which are not cost-effective in the eyes of young people, are now filled with the figure of the elderly.

They don't need to be too high, there are no barriers to learning, they just need to be serious, patient, and have a low enough attitude.

While some of the lucky peers are in the middle of a diet in large companies, more elderly people can only run "cheap jobs", even in the 60-70 age group, their physical fitness may not have declined, but the old age label has made them a serious loss of value as a labor commodity.

If the cheap labor of the previous generation came from regional differences, then the cheap labor of this generation comes from generational differences, and the elderly who have to work are becoming the "elderly child laborers" of the new era.

As a vulnerable group in the labour market, older workers are even more miserable than child labourers. Because even the most just laws do not protect older workers, but acquiesce in tailor-made exploitation.

Last year, the news of the sudden death of a 60-year-old express sorter in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province in the early morning rushed to the hot search.

The courier company denied that the old man was "injured at work" and was only willing to pay for the accident insurance amount and humanitarian expenses. The Ningbo Human Resources and Social Security Bureau also said that the express company's disposal was legal and reasonable, because after the age of 60, the sorter is no longer a laborer, and the express company does not need to pay five insurances and one housing fund for it, and there is no work-related injury insurance, so it is naturally impossible to identify work-related injuries.

In both Japan and China, elderly workers are cheap and worry-free.

We have all kinds of elaborate legislative protections for children, but we lack the same care for the elderly.

The sunset of life is no better than the sun at seven or eight o'clock in the morning, and after the elderly lose their status as laborers, they become permanent temporary workers.

Not only are labor rights and interests not guaranteed, but even the most basic dignity is always crumbling.

Ms. Keiko, 68, who has been working as a dispatch worker for five years, told me that it is common for young people to scold older dispatch workers.

Keiko was most injured when she worked at a department store. 20 elderly people were dispatched to assist in the cosmetics activities of the department store, but when they arrived at the store, they were scolded by the clerk: "The old thing is dirty, get out of here!" ”

On that day, the original 3-hour work of the whole day was declared over, and although the salary was not less, Keiko was low for a long time.

Sometimes, it's like a commodity. Some workplaces will over-demand the dispatch of 10 elderly people, and only 5 people will be left in the end. The elderly who are not selected can only return home by themselves, and they have to pay a sum of transportation expenses.

Sometimes I don't care about anything, so I just scold there, but in the end I still don't say anything. ”

Keiko worries that if she expresses her dissatisfaction, she will be classified as a thorn in the head by the dispatch company, and it will be more difficult to get a job.

A lot of the narrative about older workers can easily be shaped into a certain spirit.

It's as if these elderly people work because they can't stay idle, because they like to go to work:

a 91-year-old nursing home nurse who takes care of residents who are younger than herself; An 84-year-old supermarket tally clerk who handles sashimi with vigor every day; A 76-year-old smoking administrator uses a smiling face to influence passers-by who smoke illegally.

When asked why they want to continue working, they always say "I like to work" and "I like the feeling of being needed", and when asked how long they want to work, they say "I want to work until I die".

So the work of the elderly has become a kind of glorious variant of labor, a living archway that celebrates labor, but the other side of reality is that for more people, it is just a last resort.

Are you happy at work? "Happy? Just to eat, to eat. ”

If you don't work, you can't live. For at least a quarter of older Japanese women struggling to live off the poverty line, retirement jobs have never been an option.

When they were young, many of them were stay-at-home wives and had very meagre pensions after retirement. Once the husband dies and the family loses its main economic income, poverty immediately ensues, and they have to start a new job in the second half of their lives.

If a monthly family income of 200,000 yuan (about 9,568 yuan) is the threshold for a worry-free life, then only 20% of all Japanese people can meet the standard.

Compared to Germany and Sweden, where the population is also aging, the willingness of the elderly to continue working after retirement is far ahead.

It is undeniable that there are many old people in the world who love to work, but love cannot be used to glorify all forced livelihoods.

And as more and more older people continue to work, and this trend is expected to continue to rise, we should perhaps start thinking more formally:

How can we make it easier for older people to find jobs, and how can we ensure their dignity and rights?

In Japan, **build silver-haired talents**, hold a special job fair for silver-haired talents, and the job search software has also opened a special area for silver-haired talents.

Many large companies are also changing their employment policies and adjusting discriminatory policies against older workers.

While many young people complain about the "old man who doesn't work" on the vegetarian diet, a survey by the Persol Institute shows that the inaction of older employees is also a last resort.

More than 300 retired business people surveyed said that when they reached retirement age, they were significantly less likely to be called to meetings, received less information from within the company, had to start handing off important tasks to younger employees, and no longer had the opportunity to try new business.

As a result, they are hollowed out by age and quickly fall into a situation of idleness.

Now, many Japanese companies are starting to re-examine the rationale for this approach and offer retirement-age employees an alternative work path. As a near-retirement, employees can choose whether to continue with the same amount of work and receive the same salary, or reduce their work and receive a relatively small salary.

Some tourism and restaurant owners are even interested in recruiting older employees, as they are not only cheaper, but also really good at the job.

A woman who runs a farm tour in Hokkaido hires a number of farm guides, all of whom are local elders, and although each of them can't work too long hours and it takes a lot of trouble to adjust their work schedules, she doesn't regret it

"People don't grow up at 18, and they don't grow old at 60. If retirement is destined to be delayed in the future, then I hope that society will accept us as I have accepted them. ”