"Home? Nursing Home?" At the Crossroads... No Place to Live [Senior House]

[1-2]"Home? Or Nursing Home?" To Avoid Standing at the Crossroads

2030-2050 Baby Boomers Entering 'Post-Elderly 75 and Older'
Surge in Elderly Requiring Long-Term Care

Current Senior Housing Is Either 'Ultra-Expensive' or 'Rental'
More Housing Needed for Middle-Class Post-Elderly
Allowing Seniors to Choose Where to Live According to Their Financial Ability

On the 3rd of last month, residents were having a conversation at Spring County Xi, a senior welfare housing in Yongin City. Photo by Jin-Hyung Kang aymsdream@

Age 75. This is the criterion that separates early elderly from late elderly. Just as age 19 marks the boundary between adolescence and adulthood, elderly people can be classified based on the age of 75. The medical and welfare fields classify those aged 75 and older as ‘long-term care recipients’ who require care. This classification is based on research findings that, on average, after surpassing this age, people begin to experience various ailments and a decline in physical strength, which leads to decreased motivation for social activities.

Yoo Ae-jung, Director of the Integrated Care Research Center at the Health Insurance Research Institute, identified 2030 as the period when the population of elderly aged 75 will increase explosively. She also predicted that a new housing market will open from that time. The reason for pinpointing 2030 is that the first baby boomer generation (born 1955?1964) will sequentially cross the age threshold of 75. All of them will become late elderly by 2040. After that, the second baby boomer generation (born 1965?1974), currently middle-aged, will begin to enter the late elderly group. The number of elderly requiring care will flood in like a tidal wave from 2030 to 2050.

Needing care does not necessarily mean being physically immobile. The housing types for elderly aged 65 and older can be broadly divided into three categories according to their life cycle. Early elderly aged 65 to under 75, who can prepare their own meals three times a day, travel, and work, can live in their own homes. Late elderly aged 75 and older, who can move around but find it difficult to cook alone and begin to develop illnesses, need senior welfare housing where care services are provided. Elderly whose health has deteriorated to the point that they cannot move independently must reside in nursing homes or care hospitals.

At this point, what our society needs to focus on is the late elderly group. Director Yoo said, "The government must institutionally lay the groundwork so that elderly people can live in housing where they want when they need care," adding, "The private sector should be encouraged to invest and build. With proper infrastructure, elderly people can choose where to live according to their financial capacity."

Currently, the housing options for late elderly people receiving care in South Korea are divided into two extremes. There are public rental housing units for elderly recipients of basic living benefits, with a deposit of 1 million won and a monthly rent of 50,000 won, or ultra-luxury housing in the Gangnam 3 districts for wealthy elderly people, with a deposit of 1 billion won and a monthly rent of 5 million won. There are only these two options. Middle-class elderly people have nowhere to turn when they need care.

By 2030, the number of elderly people requiring care will surge and begin to overwhelm society. If the baby boomer generation becomes late elderly without a diverse housing infrastructure in place, they will face the heartbreaking choice of "Do I want to live at home or go to a nursing home?" when they need care.

Japan, which faced a super-aged society before us, fully revised its ‘Elderly Housing Support Act’ in 2011 to provide housing for middle-class elderly people. This was 11 years ahead of 2022, when South Korea’s baby boomer equivalent, the ‘Dankai generation,’ began entering late elderly status. South Korea has only six years left before the demand for elderly care explodes. The time to prepare is tight.

[1-2] "Home? Or Nursing Home?" To Avoid Standing at the Crossroads