Last week, the Bloomberg website ran an article titled "The Road to Retirement is Only Getting Longer - Working People's Anger Swirls Around the World.
All developed countries, to varying degrees, are aging. As a result, public pensions have been increasing as a percentage of GDP and are expected to exceed 10% by 2040.
Since Japan is an advanced country in terms of aging, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) has already announced on its website that the percentage is 10.4%.
In light of this situation, each country intends to raise the starting age for pension payments in stages, but reform has not progressed well. Pensions are an important source of income to support the lives of the elderly, so if the starting age for pension payments is delayed, they will have to work until then.
In the United Kingdom, when the starting age for pension benefits was raised from 65 to 66, the poverty rate among 65-year-olds doubled.
In order to prevent such a situation, it is essential to have employment laws that allow people to work until the age at which pension payments begin.
In this respect, Japan's labor laws require companies to employ workers until the age of 65, so the impact has not been so great.
In France, a large demonstration was held in response to the government's policy of raising the age at which pension payments begin from 62 to 64.
One would think that 64 years of age would be fine, but perhaps it is the national character of the people who value leisure time, or perhaps it is their differing views on labor (Japanese people think working is good, but French people think working is bad). 80% of the people are opposed to the pension reform.
The Bloomberg article provides two examples regarding retirement ages. One is the case of Australia's indigenous Aboriginal people. Their life expectancy is more than 20 years shorter than that of ordinary Australians, both male and female. This is why many of them die before receiving their pensions. If the pension starting age is raised for these people, they will have to work until they die.
The other example is of people doing physically demanding or dangerous work. It is difficult for an old body to do physically and mentally demanding work.
I remember that when I was a labor committee member of an industrial union, we once discussed whether we should include a policy to raise the retirement age from 60 to 65. At that time, some union members who worked in factories said that it would be physically demanding for them to work until age 65, and in the end, it was decided not to adopt a policy of mandatory retirement at age 65.
As the average age increases, life after retirement will also become longer.
We live in an age when life is said to be 100 years. So I think it would be good to create a world where many people can work longer in jobs that suit them. ……
I intend to work while I can.
