Why Must We Engage in 'Senior Business'? [Senior Biz Insights]

Professor Kim Jeong-geun, Department of Silver Industry, Gangnam University

Last week, I visited Japan to conduct a research project on developing a health-promoting day and night care center model. The goal was not to observe the typical day and night care centers that provide care and leisure activities for elderly people with mobility difficulties, but to find a new type of day and night care center model where health improves and quality of life in old age is enhanced. Japan, the world’s most aged country, had already entered a super-aged society (where the elderly population aged 65 and over accounts for more than 20% of the total population) by 2010. I was also very curious about how Japan’s day and night care centers had changed over the past 15 years. Moreover, I wanted to learn from what Japan had done well and gain lessons from what they had not, thinking, “We should not do it that way.”

The day and night care center I visited in Japan was very different from those in Korea. Instead of desks and chairs, there were exercise machines. The monitors displayed names and exercise machine numbers. Elderly people were exercising in front of machines assigned to their physical condition. Some seniors used walking aids to move to designated exercise machines, while others walked in large circles around the center. One elderly person was even cleaning the floor with a vacuum cleaner alongside a staff member. I was almost confused whether I was at a day and night care center or a fitness center.

The operator of this center said they focused on the changing needs of Japanese elderly. Although there are many day and night care centers in Japan that provide nursing and care, there were few centers that activated the residual abilities of the elderly to support their return to daily life. This center provided programs to maintain and improve daily living functions to support independence for elderly people covered by long-term care insurance, enabling them to live independently at home. They trained strength and balance so that seniors could go to the bathroom alone, walk at home or outdoors, and clean and hang laundry by themselves. The elderly person who used the vacuum cleaner alone was learning the actual cleaning method after strength training exercises necessary for house cleaning with a staff member. Through various practical programs simulating daily life scenes, the health-promoting day care center played its role in helping long-term care insurance beneficiaries live not as frail and dependent beings but as independent, autonomous, and healthy individuals. Perhaps because of the exercise and physical ability enhancement programs, there were many men at this center.

In Korea, many companies and self-employed people are recently interested in senior business. This is because the entry of the baby boomer generation into the age of 65 in 2020 has raised expectations that population aging will create new business opportunities. Therefore, there is much interest in “how” and “with what” to succeed in senior business. However, relatively little attention seems to be paid to the question of “why” senior business must be done. Of course, it is for economic stability, but there must be an answer to the fundamental purpose of why senior business must be pursued. Creating the best answer to this question can become the competitiveness of “senior business.”

People often ask me how to find senior business opportunities with their own business ideas. Especially recently, many want to enter senior business using technology-related products such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IOT). Unfortunately, some digital technology products increase elderly people’s dependence on technology, weakening their residual abilities or disconnecting them from the local community. A world where automation and robotics allow elderly people to eat and move without physical effort may actually weaken their physical, mental, and cognitive functions, deteriorate quality of life in old age, and shorten healthy life expectancy and life expectancy. Overseas, research on smartphone addiction among the elderly is increasing. Watching videos or using social networking services (SNS) late into the night reduces face-to-face interactions, lowers sleep quality, and increases risks of depression and dementia.

Therefore, we must prepare the best answer to “why” senior business must be done. The best answer becomes the competitiveness of senior business and leads to what we call “business success.” The specific answer is each person’s responsibility, but many existing studies and experts summarize the purpose and belief direction of senior business into two main points.

First, senior business should aim to help elderly people maintain independent living so they can perform daily living functions on their own. Just as Japan’s recent health-promoting day care centers operate to support daily life and independence of the elderly, senior business should create products and services that enable independent daily living as long as possible in the places they desire, even as they age. Senior business must play the role of helping everyone avoid a dependent life, maintain self-esteem, and live independently every day.

Second, senior business should help elderly people maintain and develop continuous solidarity with various generations within the local community, not isolation. As the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that “loneliness is as harmful to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day,” meeting and interacting with others is essential for everyone. Especially as social interactions decrease with age, senior business must fulfill this role. Senior business should create ways for elderly people to meet and communicate with neighbors, friends, and younger generations in the community. For example, AOI care, a dementia group home in Japan, created a community room and caf? where dementia patients can interact with local residents. The University Based Retirement Community in the United States developed a new senior housing model where retirees can attend classes and interact with young university students. It is worth seriously reflecting on why senior business models that promote communication and social relationships with various people succeed more than those that promote solitary living.

In six months, in 2025, Korea will enter a super-aged society with an elderly population of 10 million. It is time to consider a different form of senior business than in the past. We should not only look at the increasing size of the elderly population but also work together as a society to create the value and meaning that aging brings to individual lives. A happy aging society is one where people of all ages can say, “I’m really glad I was born.” Recently, low birth rates have become serious, and if aging is unhappy, low birth rates cannot be resolved.

Junggeun Kim, Professor, Department of Silver Industry, Gangnam University

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.