"We Have Dreams, Too..." Survival in a Super-Aged Society: Seniors Heading to Work [Report]

[Financial News]"I believe that even as we get older, we should continue contributing to society."Kim Shin-yeol, 75, who is taking part in a government senior jobs program, works as a barista at Cafe Nanuda in Yongdu-dong, Dongdaemun District, Seoul.
At 10 a.m. on the 15th, when a reporter visited the cafe and ordered an iced Americano, Kim began making it without hesitation. She ground the beans in a grinder, placed them in a portafilter, and leveled the coffee evenly with a distributor. After attaching it to the group head, a rich espresso flowed into the cup. Kim then poured the espresso into a cup filled with ice and water. In just a few minutes, the iced Americano was ready.
Kim works two to three days a week, arriving at 8 a.m. and staying until 11 a.m. She handles the cafe's overall operations, including drink preparation, inventory management, and cleaning. For that work, she receives about 300,000 to 350,000 won a month in activity pay.
In her younger years, Kim worked as an executive at a non-life insurance company. After retirement, she studied coffee, an area she had long been interested in. "I studied for two years and steadily built up my skills. I still do this because I enjoy it," she said with a smile. What began as a hobby became the foundation for a second job.
But Kim also went through a period of aimless days. Right after retirement, she had little to do and spent most of the day at home. Going outside also made her overly conscious of how others saw her as an 'old person.' She said, "There was a limit to staying home all the time. I learned coffee, and thanks to that, I started working. It helps financially, but it also gives me energy and boosts my self-esteem." On her days off, she enjoys hobbies such as screen golf, baduk, and billiards, keeping a balance between work and leisure.
Even so, there are still disappointments. One is that the age threshold used to define seniors in society, and the range of available jobs, are far too limited.
Under the current Welfare of Older Persons Act, people aged 65 and older are classified as seniors. Most senior welfare services and senior jobs programs are also operated on that basis. Recently, as life expectancy has increased, voices have grown calling for the senior age threshold to be raised to 70 or older.
Kim also believes the current standard does not match reality. Even though many people are still healthy and active at that age, once they are classified as seniors, their social roles and job opportunities shrink.
Kim said, "I was lucky enough to find something I like, so my case worked out well. But around me, many friends are spending retirement at home. Even though older people can still contribute to society, many lose confidence and cannot bring themselves to go out." She added, "There are not many opportunities to choose the kind of work we want. A friend of mine tried to enter a new field, but after being told that getting hired would be difficult because of age, she was deeply disappointed."


The government has expanded senior jobs to a record 1.152 million in 2026, up 54,000 from last year. The increase reflects three converging trends: entry into a super-aged society, a rise in senior employment, and insufficient retirement income. Many older adults are returning to the labor market to make up for shortfalls in income. However, most are working in simple, low-skilled jobs, and criticism is growing that more high-quality positions are needed.
Jun Soo Hur, a professor in the Department of Social Welfare at Soongsil University who has outlined the medium- to long-term direction of senior jobs policy since the early stages of the Korea Labor Force Development Institute for the Aged's senior jobs program, told this paper that the original system was designed more as a form of 'expense-covered volunteering' than as a job program in the general labor market.
He said the starting point was to allow seniors in the near-poor bracket, who were living in poverty but not receiving support from the National Basic Livelihood Security system, to take part in community service and receive a certain level of activity pay.
However, Hur said that as the system expanded, it was approached as 'political populism' rather than as a way to preserve income and promote social participation for vulnerable seniors, and that only simple jobs increased.
"Whenever administrations change, the program has been used as a political achievement by expanding the number of jobs in response to senior voters," he said. "We need to move away from simply increasing the numbers and clearly define the system's purpose and target group."

The increase in senior jobs also means that older adults are becoming poorer. Behind retirement poverty lies the low level of pension benefits.
According to an analysis released on the 10th by the National Pension Research Institute of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's 'Pensions at a Glance 2025,' Korea's old-age income poverty rate stood at 39.7 percent, 2.7 times the OECD average of 14.8 percent. Among those aged 76 and older, more than half, or 54.0 percent, were in poverty. The poverty rate among older women was also 45.0 percent.
The income replacement rate, which refers to pension benefits as a share of pre-retirement income, was 33.4 percent for the average Korean worker, 9.6 percentage points below the OECD average of 43.0 percent.
In particular, many older adults in their 80s and above were unable to secure enough years of contributions when the National Pension Service was introduced. As a result, many have no pension or receive only a small amount, forcing them to return to the labor market after retirement to make a living. Experts say the Basic Pension must be restructured to support low-income seniors left out of the National Pension Service and other pension systems.
"Simply continuing to expand spending on senior jobs and the Basic Pension cannot fundamentally solve elderly poverty," Hur said. "We need to strengthen the National Pension Service's role in securing retirement income and reform the system so that future retirees can maintain at least a minimum standard of living with their pensions alone."

On the 16th, the government said it plans to reform the Basic Pension payment structure into a more progressive system that provides greater support to those with lower incomes. The current system pays 350,000 won a month to 70 percent of seniors aged 65 and older based on income, but the government is considering a long-term plan to exclude higher-income seniors from eligibility. It is also reviewing a plan that would not reduce benefits for current recipients.
As the so-called second baby boom generation, those born between 1964 and 1974, begins to retire in earnest, the number of seniors with higher education and more assets than previous generations is rising rapidly. Even so, the eligibility standard that provides a fixed amount to 70 percent of all older adults has remained largely unchanged for 12 years. As aging accelerates, annual spending on the Basic Pension has already exceeded 20 trillion won.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to push for improvements to the Basic Pension eligibility criteria as one of its major reform tasks in the second half of this year. One option under discussion is to replace the current standard of the bottom 70 percent of income with a threshold based on a certain percentage of median income, gradually excluding higher-income seniors and concentrating support on older adults at greater risk of poverty.
Experts also advise that senior jobs policy should be reorganized in the same direction. They say income-supporting social participation programs for vulnerable seniors should be separated from private-sector employment policies for older adults with expertise and career experience.
"Healthy older adults who are able to work should be able to keep participating in the labor market by using their experience and skills," Hur emphasized. "Rather than focusing on the number of senior jobs, policy should measure how stably and for how long older adults can work, and whether they can demonstrate their abilities in the fields they want."


gaa1003@fnnews.com An Ga-eul Reporter