An assistant manager at a conglomerate is set to marry next month. Having started his career at 31, he delayed dating and marriage. “I want to have children, but I’m worried that even if I have them early, I won’t be able to work until my mid-60s when my children will be in college,” he said.
Similarly, the head of another conglomerate took paternity leave late last year to care for his kindergarten-aged son, as his wife had already used her paternity leave.
South Korea is evolving into a “late-career society,” where people marry and have children late in life. It is increasingly common to see new employees in their early 30s, brides and grooms around 40, and parents of infants in their early 40s.
The traditional “three sets of adult verification”—employment, marriage, and childbirth—were previously expected to be achieved in one’s 20s but have now shifted to the 30s and 40s. This trend signifies a deceleration in the life timeline.
Should this late-career trend persist, more individuals in their 60s will undoubtedly work past retirement age to fund their children’s education.
Ha Joon-kyung, an economics professor at Hanyang University, emphasized the need to improve social systems to expedite entry into employment, marriage, and childbirth and maximize economic growth potential.
With South Korea’s population aged 65 and older surpassing 10 million for the first time, there are increasing calls for pension reforms and extending the retirement age to address the super-aging era.
As of July 10, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety reported 10.062 million registered residents aged 65 and older, accounting for 19.51% of the total population. A country is classified as an ultra-elderly society when over 20% of its population is 65 or older.
Lee, who joined a startup in January after a five-year job search, expressed regret over not treating his father to a meal with his salary before his 60th birthday. Living on pocket money from his retired father until his 30s was challenging, and he described those five years as filled with regret.
The phenomenon of “job tardiness” among people in their 20s is becoming more pronounced as the job market tightens, with fewer entry-level positions available at large companies.
According to a September survey by job portal Incruit of 897 respondents, including job seekers and employees, the average minimum age for new hires was 33.5 years for men and 31.6 years for women. This reflects an increase from the previous year, where the minimum ages were 31.8 years for men and 30 for women, indicating growing acceptance of new hires in their early 30s.
While people in their 20s are entering the workforce later, the labor force participation rate of those in their early 60s has surpassed that of people in their early 20s. The labor force participation rate is the ratio of “employed + unemployed” to the population, which is the percentage of people who are working or trying to find a job.
Statistics Korea reported that the labor force participation rate for individuals aged 20 to 24 was 48.5% last year, 17 percentage points lower than the 65% rate for those in their early 60s. This trend reversed in 2006, after being higher for the younger age group until 2005.
