[Financial Planning for the 100-Year Life] Why Do I Dream of Lifelong Active Engagement?

Having a Job After Retirement:
Top Priority for Planning a 100-Year Life
Work Alleviates the Three Major Anxieties:
Money, Health, and Loneliness

Reaching my late 70s, I realize how grateful I am to have something to do every day. I believe the best way to alleviate the three major anxieties of old age?money, health, and loneliness?is to have work, whether it is earning income, engaging in social contribution activities, or pursuing hobbies. Looking back, it was fortunate that I recognized the importance of work after retirement by observing Japan, which was 20 to 30 years ahead of us as a super-aged society, through a chance encounter in my younger days.

The first turning point was during my third year at the company in 1975, when I was a junior employee. I was lucky to have the opportunity to train at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Japan. At that time, the proportion of elderly people aged 65 and over in Japan’s total population was 8%. In Korea, the elderly population ratio will reach 20% next year. Forty-nine years ago, Japan’s elderly ratio was less than half of what it is in Korea now. Looking back, I think the elderly in Japan at that time had set aside their pride and were ready to work. I witnessed two scenes then. One was at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. There was a warehouse underground where stocks and bonds were stored. During a tour of the warehouse, about 100 elderly people who looked to be in their 60s and 70s with white hair were sitting and counting stocks. They included former company executives and former public officials, all people who once held high positions, but they were working for about 500 yen per hour.

The other scene was at the business hotel where I was staying. At 5 p.m., the young staff left work, and elderly men took over as night duty. Seeing these examples, I thought, “Even when you get older, you have to work at something. If you want to work, you should give up prestigious and authoritative jobs to the younger generation and be willing to do menial tasks like those. Since I will live a long time, I should prepare for that.” Seeing those scenes helped me immensely in planning the latter part of my life. It made me think about what kind of work I could do as I age, rather than focusing on high positions or high salaries.

The second turning point was in the early 2000s, when Japan’s baby boomer generation (born 1947?1949) was a few years away from mandatory retirement (then at age 60). At that time, there was a boom in publishing books related to planning for the latter part of life targeting the baby boomer generation in Japan. I bought and read those books. The summary of their content was that preparing for old age is not just about saving several hundred million won but requires comprehensive responses to longevity risk, health risk, child-related risk, asset structure risk, and inflation risk.

In particular, they emphasized that the most reliable preparation for old age in the era of 100-year lifespans is to remain active throughout life. Reading these materials motivated me to prioritize “lifelong active engagement” in planning my later years. Even after retiring from my main job, I decided to find work suitable for myself as long as I am able to move around and to have my own time during the day.

The third turning point was reading books published in Japan from the early 2010s about marital conflicts after husbands’ retirement. When visiting bookstores in Tokyo at that time, many books with titles like “How to Get Along Well as a Couple After Retirement,” “Retired Couples User Manual,” “Scary Wife, Useless Husband Prescription,” and “Taming the Retired Husband” were displayed. Why were so many such books published? Because marital conflicts in households where the husband had retired had become a serious issue. Due to this, Japanese experts in old-age planning advised couples approaching retirement to make special efforts to maintain harmony after retirement. They particularly recommended that couples try to have their own time during the day as much as possible even after retirement.

However, I think this issue is even more serious in Korea now. I hear many concerns about marital conflicts after retirement both through the media and at old-age planning lectures. This means special efforts are needed to maintain marital harmony after retirement. Having work is important not only for economic reasons or for the retiree’s meaningful life but also for marital harmony after retirement. I am grateful for these turning points that inspired me to dream of lifelong active engagement, and I want to continue nurturing that dream as long as my health permits.

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