[Financial Planning for the 100-Year Life] Increasing 'Nono Care' and Senior Job Opportunities

Healthy Seniors Caring for Others
Significant Increase in Senior Employees at Nursing Facilities

In the era of 100-year lifespans, ‘Nono (老老) Care’ is gaining attention as a job opportunity for seniors. Here, care refers to nursing and caregiving, and Nono Care means healthy elderly people caring for other elderly individuals who need assistance due to illness or other reasons. Initially, care was provided by family members or relatives, but as demand increased, professional facilities or home care services have been used, naturally leading to more related job opportunities. As the younger workforce becomes scarce, job opportunities for seniors filling these roles are also increasing.

We introduce the case of a former public official working as an assistant at a daytime elderly care center. In the early days after retirement, he thought, “Since I’m retired and receiving a pension, let’s enjoy life.” However, after a few months, each day felt very frustrating, and he even felt pressured by his wife’s attitude. After some searching, he found a job at a daytime elderly care center. He works 5 to 6 hours a day. He drives elderly people to the center, sings songs with them, plays janggi (Korean chess), and takes care of them. Although the pay is small, he receives a monthly salary and the center covers his health insurance premiums.

There is also a woman over 70 years old working in home care. She obtained a caregiving certificate to care for her mother. After her mother passed away and she was resting, people around her encouraged her, saying, “Since you have the certificate and are diligent, why not care for someone else?” She now provides home care for a grandmother close to 90 years old and says it is rewarding and she is very satisfied with the salary.

Local governments and senior workforce development centers nationwide also arrange Nono Care jobs. These involve visiting elderly people who have difficulty moving or are ill to check on their well-being or read books to provide emotional support, assisting with household chores like laundry and dishwashing, and offering health care support such as helping with medication or accompanying them to hospitals and pharmacies, receiving a small allowance for these services.

Looking at Japan’s case, which is 20 to 30 years ahead of us in becoming a super-aged society, the number of Nono Care jobs in nursing facilities is expected to increase rapidly. Japanese nursing facilities have long been actively hiring senior employees aged 60 and above. During a business trip to Japan in 2017, I heard from a Japanese welfare journalist about the Shinko Welfare Association nursing facility in Yokohama. At that time, Shinko Welfare had a total of 1,123 employees, with 205 in their 60s and 60 in their 70s working there. The number of senior workers is likely much higher now. This is because Japan’s elderly nursing and caregiving industry is suffering from a severe labor shortage. As of the end of 2021, Japan’s average effective job openings-to-applicants ratio was about 1.03, meaning there were 1.03 job openings per job seeker. However, the ratio for caregiving and nursing jobs was 3.65, more than three times the average.

The heroes filling these vacancies are healthy seniors in their 60s and 70s. While some work full-time, most work 4 to 5 hours a day, 2 to 4 days a week, depending on their wishes and physical capacity. As CA (Care Assistants), they handle auxiliary tasks such as making beds and cleaning in nursing facilities, easing the workload of professional caregivers, and also provide comforting companionship to residents of the same generation. They also assist with meal distribution, dishwashing, and accompanying residents on walks.

Nursing facilities advertise phrases like “Welcome those aged 60 and above” and “No experience necessary” to attract applicants. To retain veteran employees longer, some facilities have extended retirement ages to 70 or abolished retirement age altogether. Even gender boundaries are becoming blurred; one in three caregivers is male. Efforts are also being made to reduce the physical labor involved in caregiving by integrating the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies and robotics.

There are many healthy and active elderly people in our country as well. Wouldn’t it be great if they could work in such jobs in various ways and help each other to build a healthy aging society? This is a thought worth considering.

Kang Changhee, Representative of the Happy 100-Year Asset Management Research Association