Workforce in Asia continues aging, working

TOKYO — With populations across East Asia declining and fewer young people entering the workforce, workers increasingly are toiling well into their 70s and beyond. Companies desperately need them, and the older employees desperately need the work. Early retirement ages have bloated the pension rolls, making it difficult for governments in Asia to pay retirees enough money each month to live on.

Demographers have warned about a looming demographic time bomb in wealthy nations for years. But Japan and its neighbors have already started to feel the effects, with governments, companies and, most of all, older residents grappling with the far-reaching consequences of an aging society. The changes have been most pronounced in the workplace.

Working at his age “is not fun,” said Yoshihito Oonami, 73, a vegetable delivery person in Japan’s capital. “But I do it to survive.”

For some older people, the demand for workers has given them new opportunities and leverage with employers, especially if they felt pushed out by early-retirement ages in favor of younger workers. Now the question these aging nations are grappling with is how to adapt to the new reality — and potential benefits — of an older workforce while ensuring that people can retire after a lifetime of work without falling into poverty.

In East Asia, where populations are graying faster than anywhere else in the world, there is an urgent need for more flexibility. Japan, South Korea and China have all been forced to experiment with policy changes — such as corporate subsidies and retirement adjustments — to accommodate population shifts. Now, with the rest of the world not far behind, many nations will probably look to Asia for lessons in how to respond to similar crises.

Japan isn’t the only country in East Asia where older people feel they have no choice but to keep working. In South Korea, with a poverty rate among older people close to 40%, a similar proportion of those 65 and older are still working. In Hong Kong, 1 in 8 older residents works. The ratio is more than one-fourth in Japan — compared with 18% in the United States.