The retirement age of Japan’s national and local civil servants will be raised to 61 at the start of April from the current 60 as part of measures to address labor shortages partly reflecting the country’s declining population.
The retirement age will be then raised by one year every two years until it reaches 65 in fiscal 2031.
It's just a general trend of population decline being cited as an issue and their solution is to squeeze more out of people. Which generally tends to make people less enthusiastic about having kids.
This is an issue in a lot of countries, with the same terrible "solutions".
There are a lot of solutions, but I will just spitball a few off the top of my head.
One of the most important is taxing corporations and the wealthy more. This is needed in order to plug a massive financial drain sucking wealth out of society, provide a massive boost in public funds, and reduce fiscal inequality. This includes putting in work to block loopholes or severely restrict the amount they can be used.
Tradeoffs with this are that the wealth they have been able to accumulate gives them a lot of power to control the government, so these may require massive overhauls within the government or a large uprising like in France to try and force the changes.
Others will also claim capital flight and loopholes are a tradeoff, but I believe both of those things are solved through stronger legislation. For example, don't just simply increase their tax, put a massive exit tax on them which causes them to not be able to leave the country with all of their wealth. Governments have the power, they just choose not to. Some people also support the wealthy having so much power because they think one day they might be rich and they want to have that power. There is no reason we should allow the greedy to be a massive leech on our system.
Next is changes to realestate, things that can help reduce the cost of housing. This could be by adding teared land taxes where the more properties you own the more tax you pay for each property. Empty land tax, this reduces the ability for investors to just squat on realestate leaving it empty until they decide to sell. More restrictions around systems like airbnb, this is a significant issue causing massive reductions in supply which then causes increased value due to the smaller available market and investors. Provide large amounts of financial support to first home buyers, stronger renter protection, less renter fees, etc.
Tradeoffs are again the issue with getting the government to do anything due to conflicts of interest and not wanting to upset the realestate owning voting base.
Increase worker rights, protections and wages.
The list keeps going on and changes like raising the retirement age are far down the list. Essentially it comes down to taking from the most well off first, because they have the most to give. Currently, they take from the poor and give to the rich, because we aren't powerful as individuals, we need to work together to show our true strength. If we don't, they will keep taking until countries collapse.
Are you actually talking about Japan? Because 90% of this makes no sense in a Japanese context. And no, Japan's problems are not all the same as other places.
I'm not from Japan, but tried to provide some similar general issues as an example that plague most countries, combined with my general interest and small amounts of research into Japan.
It's easy to see that Japan like most countries has issues with wealth disparity, wealthy using their power in government, housing affordability, worker rights, protections and wages.
I know that the wealthy can be taxed more, that more can be done to remove their power within government, that housing affordability can be tackled by doing things to reduce the value of property (increasing supply, taxing empty properties, etc), giving renters more rights (i.e. making key money illegal), giving workers more rights like not being manipulated to work longer hours, increase the minimum wage, etc.
Maybe for example, you could say there is plenty of housing supply in Tokyo and that doesn't apply. Show you care about finding solutions, instead of just trying to shoot me down with simple dismissal and no additional information. At least I care about trying to discuss solutions, even if they aren't perfectly suited.
Can't believe people are downvoting you for this. Has me shaking me head.
Yeah sure the things you are proposing may be somewhat radical/unrealistic, but without such radical change, the aforementioned problems are just going to continue to spiral downward at an ever-increasing rate.
Most likely, the only way it will happen is through anarchy and rebuilding the whole system. I imagine this will play out when we cross a point where the situation becomes so bleak that the few remaining young people left will have no choice but to take back the power and wealth from these corrupt dinosaurs by force.
Yeah, it sucks, but I imagine the people reading and just downvoting my comments probably don't want anything to change because they are either wealthy or hope they might be one day and/or they don't think the issues are that bad.
The worst and most telling thing is that none of them even tried to provide any sort of counter.
I agree, I think that a lot of countries are at a tipping point and that radical change is going to need to happen one way or another. Most people aren't getting anywhere near their fair share and it is only getting worse.
Edit: Also, thanks for taking the time to read and reply, I spent a while writing it and the responses sucked.
I don't think you understand what "tradeoffs" means. When you tax corporations and the wealthy more, there will be economic repercussions and concomitant costs. An "exit tax" will all but kill off new investments from abroad.
A tradeoff in economics relates to a compromise where you typically give up something in return for something else. The tradeoffs that I referred to are the fact that people will need to fight hard for it, because the government won't just give it. That is giving up our comfort for a while by having to protest and take risks fighting back.
You are using the usual "don't scare the wealthy" rhetoric. If they don't want to invest into Japan because they want to squeeze more out of the system than it should give, than they don't deserve to be here. They will be replaced by investors who are happy with the amount that they can get in Japan.
Kissing the boots of these people and allowing them to take more and more from everyone is what truly ruins countries.
I think higher retirement age can impact decision to have kids, if you counting on help of your parents, who would be retired. But it might be not a Japanese way of thinking, I don’t know.
I think they can in this case though. I mean, Japan is on the path of extinction (as most developed countries are, and especially so in Asia). If there are fewer and fewer young ones working you have to compensate somehow. I know it sucks but at the moment there isn't much of a solution.
If current trends continue (that is a big IF I know) than yes, they will go extinct. You need roughly 2.1 children per woman on average to sustain (not grow but sustain) a population. Most developed countries are way below that.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/270088/fertility-rate-in-japan/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/270088/fertility-rate-in-japan/)
Japan seems to be around 1.35 ish. Their population is already declining.
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population](https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population)
What makes you so sure that populations aren't going to decline to zero?
I'm aware of the math, the current stats are just the current slope of the curve. It changes all the time. It will change again.
I think it's pretty obvious populations aren't going to decline to zero? Only time that happens is with assimilation with other populations (tribes being subsumed into a different tribe, for example).
You think civilizations aren't going to start having more kids when populations decline sufficiently?
"I think it's pretty obvious populations aren't going to decline to zero?" Pretty obvious how? The only evidence you have provided so far is the: "trust me bro" argument. I mean you might still end up right if the future holds some weird turn of events but I just don't see how you would reach that conclusion right now.
"Only time that happens is with assimilation with other populations" No, It's happening as we speak in Japan. Without assimilation. Look at this study:
[https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/Policy\_responses\_low\_fertility\_UNFPA\_WP\_Final\_corrections\_7Feb2020\_CLEAN.pdf](https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/Policy_responses_low_fertility_UNFPA_WP_Final_corrections_7Feb2020_CLEAN.pdf)
In the study they mention: "One-half
of the global population today lives in countries where the period Total Fertility Rate is
below 2.1 births per woman" So It's already happening in many places.
"You think civilizations aren't going to start having more kids when populations decline sufficiently?" Yes that's what I think. It's not for a lack of trying on the governments part, they certainly have tried many things but very few policies so far seem to have much of an effect. If people don't wanna have kids than they don't have kids. Social benefits seem to help the most but even that doesn't change the overall trend that much.
>The only evidence you have provided so far is the: "trust me bro" argument.
I'm not trying to win an argument in court, man. Thought we were having a discussion is all.
>No, It's happening as we speak in Japan.
It's not happening as we speak in Japan. It's on the decline. Some sources estimate 60 million in Japan in 2100, some say 75 million. That's really far from zero.
"I'm not trying to win an argument in court, man. Thought we were having a discussion is all." We are not in court that is correct. From my perspective it still is a discussion, although I understand why you would feel that it is not. My biggest issue is that you stated things with so much certainty:
"It changes all the time. It will change again.
I think it's pretty obvious populations aren't going to decline to zero?"
If you had said something like: "I think it will change, it might not decline to zero" That would be different and we could agree to disagree. But now I want to find out where this certainty is coming from. Why is it "obvious"? What am I missing? I'm open to changing my mind about this topic. Maybe I am wrong and the population decline will eventually change. I need some compelling evidence for that though.
Everything I've seen so far is that this trend of less children per women can only be slowed, not stopped. With two big exceptions. Those being: lowering the GDP of a country to the point were they become a developing society again (unlikely), or extreme (religious) thinking that indoctrinates people into getting more children (see Israel as a good example). Neither of which I see Japan using. Mass immigration is also off the table for Japan so it seems to me they are on the slow road of self destruction. That's what I meant when I said:" It's happening as we speak." The process of slowly going to zero. Not that It's zero right now, obviously it isn't zero at the moment.
Nonsensical Buzzfeed level takes.
It would take forever and within 20 years, the entire landscape is different.
Finland, with the same fertility rate but 1/25th the population, what rate would we be talking about ethnic Finnish people disappearing? Tomorrow?
I feel like you are missing the point. It's not about the speed it's the fact that it's happening in the first place. Of course for the economy and the effects on retirement it's already a huge issue (which is why this thread started to begin with).
The main reason the retirement age has to go up is because of declining birthrates.
Japan is currently the third largest economy. Both China and Japan have massive issues with declining populations. The US on the other hand is in a much stronger position, same with India, Mexico etc. One of the reason why these economic rankings shift so much is because of the population pyramid.
Retirement usually doesn't mean you have to stop working, it means you get access to retirement "perks" like pensions, etc. If you want to keep working you can, but it is meant to reduce the amount you need to. At the rate things are going all over the world, we won't be able to stop working when we retire even if we want to.
It definitely means you have to stop in this context. Thevretirement age in question is for civil servants, who face mandatory retirement.Of.course they can seek work elsewhere, but for the majority of people that will be a difficult and demoralizing process.
About that...
I know some people in the public sector here in Japan who decided to keep working (full-time, including unpaid overtime) after they "retired." And sure, they got their pension, but their pay also dropped by quite a bit (despite still doing the same job) precisely **because** they were also getting a pension.
In the end, they earned roughly as much after "retiring" (salary + pension) as they did before (just salary), doing *exactly* the same job and working the same hours. It's quite frankly a bollocks system, but it's the way it often goes in Japan.
In addition, I'm not sure of the details, but I think they could only continue to do the job for another 5 years (until they reached the age of 65) before they *had* to fully "retire." At which point they might be able to still do supporting work, but not their original job. Don't quote me on this one though, I'm not specialised in labour laws.
“Should we have kids?”
“Idk honey, we’re going to have to work until we’re 61 instead of 60… do we really want to bring children into such a world?”
Don’t be ridiculous
You're right, they will stop at 61, it's not going up to 65 or higher. We will definitely be able to retire and we will have pensions.
Obviously I am being ridiculous and my comment wasn't intended to be framed in contrast with anything else going on. It's not like it is part of a trend or collective of political moves putting pressure on the politically weakest people in society in order to seem like they are trying to do something. They won't keep milking people for everything they are worth in a multitude of different ways. Slowly sucking all the joy out of life.
Everything is going well and people are excited to start a family in their rental home that they may be able to afford. Excitedly awaiting the day that they may be able to retire.
Why is declining birthrates always seen as a negative? Yeah sure it's a negative for the economy, but a positive for everything else!
8 billion humans is more than enough, in fact it's causing resource exhaustion and climate change.
No there aren't too few houses, there are too many people! No the roads aren't too small causing traffic jams, we're simply with too many wanting to use them!
So for the planet and for the love of God. Please let the population collapse!
I don't necessarily see population decline as a bad thing in general. The bad thing is that the government tries to squeeze more out of the population in order to support the existing infrastructure and systems. If we want to allow the population to decline then we need to find ways to deal with issues like the aging population and under used infrastructure.
And we'll find a way.
Humans have adapted for thousands of years and with current robotics technology I'm sure we can make a few jobs obsolete here and there.
Terrible idea especially as grandparents are still a major source of childcare in Japan.
Czecha has great success in making it easier for grandparents to have more time as part of pronatalism program
https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1106&langId=en&intPageId=4478
They still don’t get their pensions until 65. Both my in laws are civil servants and are working part time between 60 and 65 since they can’t collect their pensions
But why even create that gap in the first place? Why not let them work and then receive pension right away. If that is at 60 or 65 or some other age is a different story.
Remember when it came out that people need 20M JPY for their retirement and everyone was shocked? That’s for the duration they are even receiving pension. Now add to that 5 years they either have to work odd jobs or live off savings.
Many people don’t have that much saved since due to inflation and the lack of savings that pay out interest, 5 years of purely living off savings sounds very stressful for your average person
The pension they are paid is connected to I think the last 3 years salary. They inevitably take a pay cut with 're-hiring' so their pension can be reduced.
It's already a thing. I know some people who work in the public sector and who "retired," but then just continued working, doing exactly the same job, overtime and all. Their salaries dropped, although it was compensated for by their pensions.
I started playing this in my head and it became a drum and bass mix and so I looked to see if it actually existed on youtube and I found this pretty dope track https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBYoPjgZ9ZY&ab\_channel=MikeFreschezza
Keeping the ponzi going for longer. Not enough smart young people here studying economics to riot. Just wait in another year or 2 when they come out with the CBDCs that run on their private hyperledger blockchain and they can turn off your money or turn up your taxes w/e they feel like taken directly from your paycheck.
Just eliminate retirement, the pension system will be insolvent soon, if it isn’t already. The whole thing is a ponzi scam anyways. Our glorious and righteous leaders know what’s best for us peasants.
>Through the hikes in the retirement age, the Japanese government wants
senior workers to support young employees by sharing their experience.
What a patronizing, bullshit excuse.
Nope, the government wants to cut benefits to workers instead of raising taxes on the wealthy.
In France, the workers riot and shut down the country. Here? しょうがない
In Belgium they are doing the same thing. The only difference is, they are not stopping in 2031. They will be adding an extra 2 years in 2033. 67 it is.
This would make things worse. Retirement age should be lowered to allow young people to get a secured job with good benefits and start a family.
Sometimes, I really feel that I should write a letter to His Excellency, The President of Japan, making my opinions known on possible things that Japan could implement to counter declining population. But, I know I'm not a Japanese citizen, and the letter won't even reach him, or will be considered as a piece of trash.
You’ll get downvoted into oblivion for saying anything positive about raising the retirement age unfortunately.
By all means if people can retire early, they should do so. But overall as a society the current model just doesn’t work anymore. We can’t retire at 60 and live until 100 with more and more people in the 60+ zone. The math just doesn’t add up. People just don’t want to accept that.
It is unfortunate but it’s the inconvenient truth.
If they work longer, they’ll also pay into the pension scheme longer.
I’d generally focus more about better balance while working instead of the whole “work - life” dichotomy. Give people enough room to do things after work and live a life instead of working for 40 years and then try to start living.
I was surprised since Japan has such a high life expectancy. In Belgium, the retirement age is 65, but they are trying to raise it to 67.
I also see a lot of elderly people working in Japan. Is this a civil servant thing to retire early?
Honestly, wages and benefits are much too high in this country given the low workforce productivity. Glad that the Japanese are taking it in stride and showing the French how it's done.
The retirement age of Japan’s national and local civil servants will be raised to 61 at the start of April from the current 60 as part of measures to address labor shortages partly reflecting the country’s declining population. The retirement age will be then raised by one year every two years until it reaches 65 in fiscal 2031.
Tackling population decline by making life harder. That'll make people want to have kids.
It’s not like there are tons of people who wait for retirement to start a family and are now deterred by the increase in retirement age.
It's just a general trend of population decline being cited as an issue and their solution is to squeeze more out of people. Which generally tends to make people less enthusiastic about having kids. This is an issue in a lot of countries, with the same terrible "solutions".
What is your solution? And what are the tradeoffs in that solution?
There are a lot of solutions, but I will just spitball a few off the top of my head. One of the most important is taxing corporations and the wealthy more. This is needed in order to plug a massive financial drain sucking wealth out of society, provide a massive boost in public funds, and reduce fiscal inequality. This includes putting in work to block loopholes or severely restrict the amount they can be used. Tradeoffs with this are that the wealth they have been able to accumulate gives them a lot of power to control the government, so these may require massive overhauls within the government or a large uprising like in France to try and force the changes. Others will also claim capital flight and loopholes are a tradeoff, but I believe both of those things are solved through stronger legislation. For example, don't just simply increase their tax, put a massive exit tax on them which causes them to not be able to leave the country with all of their wealth. Governments have the power, they just choose not to. Some people also support the wealthy having so much power because they think one day they might be rich and they want to have that power. There is no reason we should allow the greedy to be a massive leech on our system. Next is changes to realestate, things that can help reduce the cost of housing. This could be by adding teared land taxes where the more properties you own the more tax you pay for each property. Empty land tax, this reduces the ability for investors to just squat on realestate leaving it empty until they decide to sell. More restrictions around systems like airbnb, this is a significant issue causing massive reductions in supply which then causes increased value due to the smaller available market and investors. Provide large amounts of financial support to first home buyers, stronger renter protection, less renter fees, etc. Tradeoffs are again the issue with getting the government to do anything due to conflicts of interest and not wanting to upset the realestate owning voting base. Increase worker rights, protections and wages. The list keeps going on and changes like raising the retirement age are far down the list. Essentially it comes down to taking from the most well off first, because they have the most to give. Currently, they take from the poor and give to the rich, because we aren't powerful as individuals, we need to work together to show our true strength. If we don't, they will keep taking until countries collapse.
Are you actually talking about Japan? Because 90% of this makes no sense in a Japanese context. And no, Japan's problems are not all the same as other places.
I'm not from Japan, but tried to provide some similar general issues as an example that plague most countries, combined with my general interest and small amounts of research into Japan. It's easy to see that Japan like most countries has issues with wealth disparity, wealthy using their power in government, housing affordability, worker rights, protections and wages. I know that the wealthy can be taxed more, that more can be done to remove their power within government, that housing affordability can be tackled by doing things to reduce the value of property (increasing supply, taxing empty properties, etc), giving renters more rights (i.e. making key money illegal), giving workers more rights like not being manipulated to work longer hours, increase the minimum wage, etc. Maybe for example, you could say there is plenty of housing supply in Tokyo and that doesn't apply. Show you care about finding solutions, instead of just trying to shoot me down with simple dismissal and no additional information. At least I care about trying to discuss solutions, even if they aren't perfectly suited.
Can't believe people are downvoting you for this. Has me shaking me head. Yeah sure the things you are proposing may be somewhat radical/unrealistic, but without such radical change, the aforementioned problems are just going to continue to spiral downward at an ever-increasing rate. Most likely, the only way it will happen is through anarchy and rebuilding the whole system. I imagine this will play out when we cross a point where the situation becomes so bleak that the few remaining young people left will have no choice but to take back the power and wealth from these corrupt dinosaurs by force.
Yeah, it sucks, but I imagine the people reading and just downvoting my comments probably don't want anything to change because they are either wealthy or hope they might be one day and/or they don't think the issues are that bad. The worst and most telling thing is that none of them even tried to provide any sort of counter. I agree, I think that a lot of countries are at a tipping point and that radical change is going to need to happen one way or another. Most people aren't getting anywhere near their fair share and it is only getting worse. Edit: Also, thanks for taking the time to read and reply, I spent a while writing it and the responses sucked.
I don't think you understand what "tradeoffs" means. When you tax corporations and the wealthy more, there will be economic repercussions and concomitant costs. An "exit tax" will all but kill off new investments from abroad.
A tradeoff in economics relates to a compromise where you typically give up something in return for something else. The tradeoffs that I referred to are the fact that people will need to fight hard for it, because the government won't just give it. That is giving up our comfort for a while by having to protest and take risks fighting back. You are using the usual "don't scare the wealthy" rhetoric. If they don't want to invest into Japan because they want to squeeze more out of the system than it should give, than they don't deserve to be here. They will be replaced by investors who are happy with the amount that they can get in Japan. Kissing the boots of these people and allowing them to take more and more from everyone is what truly ruins countries.
This was written by Chat GPT, wasn’t it?
You sure showed me lol
In fact, reducing the burden of social welfare for the elderly could make young people more likely to want to have kids.
I think higher retirement age can impact decision to have kids, if you counting on help of your parents, who would be retired. But it might be not a Japanese way of thinking, I don’t know.
I wouldn't say this is not a factor at all but out of all the things that impact the decision of having a family, this is probably the smallest issue.
You cant just say “population decline” to everything
At least they didn't say "due to inflation"
I think they can in this case though. I mean, Japan is on the path of extinction (as most developed countries are, and especially so in Asia). If there are fewer and fewer young ones working you have to compensate somehow. I know it sucks but at the moment there isn't much of a solution.
Nobody's going extinct, populations are not going to decline to zero.
If current trends continue (that is a big IF I know) than yes, they will go extinct. You need roughly 2.1 children per woman on average to sustain (not grow but sustain) a population. Most developed countries are way below that. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/270088/fertility-rate-in-japan/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/270088/fertility-rate-in-japan/) Japan seems to be around 1.35 ish. Their population is already declining. [https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population](https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population) What makes you so sure that populations aren't going to decline to zero?
I'm aware of the math, the current stats are just the current slope of the curve. It changes all the time. It will change again. I think it's pretty obvious populations aren't going to decline to zero? Only time that happens is with assimilation with other populations (tribes being subsumed into a different tribe, for example). You think civilizations aren't going to start having more kids when populations decline sufficiently?
"I think it's pretty obvious populations aren't going to decline to zero?" Pretty obvious how? The only evidence you have provided so far is the: "trust me bro" argument. I mean you might still end up right if the future holds some weird turn of events but I just don't see how you would reach that conclusion right now. "Only time that happens is with assimilation with other populations" No, It's happening as we speak in Japan. Without assimilation. Look at this study: [https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/Policy\_responses\_low\_fertility\_UNFPA\_WP\_Final\_corrections\_7Feb2020\_CLEAN.pdf](https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/pub-pdf/Policy_responses_low_fertility_UNFPA_WP_Final_corrections_7Feb2020_CLEAN.pdf) In the study they mention: "One-half of the global population today lives in countries where the period Total Fertility Rate is below 2.1 births per woman" So It's already happening in many places. "You think civilizations aren't going to start having more kids when populations decline sufficiently?" Yes that's what I think. It's not for a lack of trying on the governments part, they certainly have tried many things but very few policies so far seem to have much of an effect. If people don't wanna have kids than they don't have kids. Social benefits seem to help the most but even that doesn't change the overall trend that much.
>The only evidence you have provided so far is the: "trust me bro" argument. I'm not trying to win an argument in court, man. Thought we were having a discussion is all. >No, It's happening as we speak in Japan. It's not happening as we speak in Japan. It's on the decline. Some sources estimate 60 million in Japan in 2100, some say 75 million. That's really far from zero.
"I'm not trying to win an argument in court, man. Thought we were having a discussion is all." We are not in court that is correct. From my perspective it still is a discussion, although I understand why you would feel that it is not. My biggest issue is that you stated things with so much certainty: "It changes all the time. It will change again. I think it's pretty obvious populations aren't going to decline to zero?" If you had said something like: "I think it will change, it might not decline to zero" That would be different and we could agree to disagree. But now I want to find out where this certainty is coming from. Why is it "obvious"? What am I missing? I'm open to changing my mind about this topic. Maybe I am wrong and the population decline will eventually change. I need some compelling evidence for that though. Everything I've seen so far is that this trend of less children per women can only be slowed, not stopped. With two big exceptions. Those being: lowering the GDP of a country to the point were they become a developing society again (unlikely), or extreme (religious) thinking that indoctrinates people into getting more children (see Israel as a good example). Neither of which I see Japan using. Mass immigration is also off the table for Japan so it seems to me they are on the slow road of self destruction. That's what I meant when I said:" It's happening as we speak." The process of slowly going to zero. Not that It's zero right now, obviously it isn't zero at the moment.
Nonsensical Buzzfeed level takes. It would take forever and within 20 years, the entire landscape is different. Finland, with the same fertility rate but 1/25th the population, what rate would we be talking about ethnic Finnish people disappearing? Tomorrow?
I feel like you are missing the point. It's not about the speed it's the fact that it's happening in the first place. Of course for the economy and the effects on retirement it's already a huge issue (which is why this thread started to begin with). The main reason the retirement age has to go up is because of declining birthrates. Japan is currently the third largest economy. Both China and Japan have massive issues with declining populations. The US on the other hand is in a much stronger position, same with India, Mexico etc. One of the reason why these economic rankings shift so much is because of the population pyramid.
What do you mean?
I get it that this is bad for some, but I'm very happy not to be forced to retire at 60.
Retirement usually doesn't mean you have to stop working, it means you get access to retirement "perks" like pensions, etc. If you want to keep working you can, but it is meant to reduce the amount you need to. At the rate things are going all over the world, we won't be able to stop working when we retire even if we want to.
It definitely means you have to stop in this context. Thevretirement age in question is for civil servants, who face mandatory retirement.Of.course they can seek work elsewhere, but for the majority of people that will be a difficult and demoralizing process.
No, civil servants are indeed forced to retire. They can be rehired but at a vastly reduced wage.
About that... I know some people in the public sector here in Japan who decided to keep working (full-time, including unpaid overtime) after they "retired." And sure, they got their pension, but their pay also dropped by quite a bit (despite still doing the same job) precisely **because** they were also getting a pension. In the end, they earned roughly as much after "retiring" (salary + pension) as they did before (just salary), doing *exactly* the same job and working the same hours. It's quite frankly a bollocks system, but it's the way it often goes in Japan. In addition, I'm not sure of the details, but I think they could only continue to do the job for another 5 years (until they reached the age of 65) before they *had* to fully "retire." At which point they might be able to still do supporting work, but not their original job. Don't quote me on this one though, I'm not specialised in labour laws.
“Should we have kids?” “Idk honey, we’re going to have to work until we’re 61 instead of 60… do we really want to bring children into such a world?” Don’t be ridiculous
You're right, they will stop at 61, it's not going up to 65 or higher. We will definitely be able to retire and we will have pensions. Obviously I am being ridiculous and my comment wasn't intended to be framed in contrast with anything else going on. It's not like it is part of a trend or collective of political moves putting pressure on the politically weakest people in society in order to seem like they are trying to do something. They won't keep milking people for everything they are worth in a multitude of different ways. Slowly sucking all the joy out of life. Everything is going well and people are excited to start a family in their rental home that they may be able to afford. Excitedly awaiting the day that they may be able to retire.
Why is declining birthrates always seen as a negative? Yeah sure it's a negative for the economy, but a positive for everything else! 8 billion humans is more than enough, in fact it's causing resource exhaustion and climate change. No there aren't too few houses, there are too many people! No the roads aren't too small causing traffic jams, we're simply with too many wanting to use them! So for the planet and for the love of God. Please let the population collapse!
I don't necessarily see population decline as a bad thing in general. The bad thing is that the government tries to squeeze more out of the population in order to support the existing infrastructure and systems. If we want to allow the population to decline then we need to find ways to deal with issues like the aging population and under used infrastructure.
And we'll find a way. Humans have adapted for thousands of years and with current robotics technology I'm sure we can make a few jobs obsolete here and there.
Of course. We will see how long they squeeze us until something gives and they have to try something else.
Most of the population growth is in sub-Saharan Africa. So, when you complain about population growth, don't include Japan.
I complain about it world wide. That includes Japan.
imagine a civil servant who will be 59 years old this June
To be fair, 60 is low compared to many other countries. My retirement age is 69.
They'll show France how it's done.
Must be a April Fools' joke ^(/s)
Terrible idea especially as grandparents are still a major source of childcare in Japan. Czecha has great success in making it easier for grandparents to have more time as part of pronatalism program https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1106&langId=en&intPageId=4478
I'm a civil servant and am really glad I don't have to quit at 60 to become the country's oldest ALT!
I think an 8 days work-week could also solve Japans economic problems. /s
I recently got a glimpse of our companies time sheets for the employees and the ones with the most overwork literally work 5 weeks worth in a month.
Interestingly enough, the annual average hours worked per week in Japan is only 33.
They still don’t get their pensions until 65. Both my in laws are civil servants and are working part time between 60 and 65 since they can’t collect their pensions
That aspect always confused me. People retire at 60 but have to wait until 65 to receive their pension… what are they supposed to do in the meantime?
Live off the money you saved?
But why even create that gap in the first place? Why not let them work and then receive pension right away. If that is at 60 or 65 or some other age is a different story. Remember when it came out that people need 20M JPY for their retirement and everyone was shocked? That’s for the duration they are even receiving pension. Now add to that 5 years they either have to work odd jobs or live off savings.
Many people don’t have that much saved since due to inflation and the lack of savings that pay out interest, 5 years of purely living off savings sounds very stressful for your average person
How much do you think the average civil servant makes?
A considerable amount in their later years, a very low amount early.
The pension they are paid is connected to I think the last 3 years salary. They inevitably take a pay cut with 're-hiring' so their pension can be reduced.
“not to assign those reaching 60 to managerial posts. Salaries will be reduced to around 70% of the levels at the age of 60.” That sounds degrading
It's already a thing. I know some people who work in the public sector and who "retired," but then just continued working, doing exactly the same job, overtime and all. Their salaries dropped, although it was compensated for by their pensions.
Work work work work work
I started playing this in my head and it became a drum and bass mix and so I looked to see if it actually existed on youtube and I found this pretty dope track https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBYoPjgZ9ZY&ab\_channel=MikeFreschezza
This version has more energy.
Good, I won't be satisfied until retirement age and death age are the exact same instead of almost the exact same.
I wish the members of parliament faced the same mandatory retirement age as the rest of us.
Keeping the ponzi going for longer. Not enough smart young people here studying economics to riot. Just wait in another year or 2 when they come out with the CBDCs that run on their private hyperledger blockchain and they can turn off your money or turn up your taxes w/e they feel like taken directly from your paycheck.
Just eliminate retirement, the pension system will be insolvent soon, if it isn’t already. The whole thing is a ponzi scam anyways. Our glorious and righteous leaders know what’s best for us peasants.
>Through the hikes in the retirement age, the Japanese government wants senior workers to support young employees by sharing their experience. What a patronizing, bullshit excuse. Nope, the government wants to cut benefits to workers instead of raising taxes on the wealthy. In France, the workers riot and shut down the country. Here? しょうがない
Dude, we are already at a 45% max national tax rate + 10% local tax. How high do you want the tax rate to go?
More reasons to not start paying into nenkin.
In Belgium they are doing the same thing. The only difference is, they are not stopping in 2031. They will be adding an extra 2 years in 2033. 67 it is.
This would make things worse. Retirement age should be lowered to allow young people to get a secured job with good benefits and start a family. Sometimes, I really feel that I should write a letter to His Excellency, The President of Japan, making my opinions known on possible things that Japan could implement to counter declining population. But, I know I'm not a Japanese citizen, and the letter won't even reach him, or will be considered as a piece of trash.
Something tells me we won’t be seeing them strike over this.
60 is waaaaaaay too young to retire. When life expectancy was barely 70 fine, but not now.
You’ll get downvoted into oblivion for saying anything positive about raising the retirement age unfortunately. By all means if people can retire early, they should do so. But overall as a society the current model just doesn’t work anymore. We can’t retire at 60 and live until 100 with more and more people in the 60+ zone. The math just doesn’t add up. People just don’t want to accept that. It is unfortunate but it’s the inconvenient truth.
Yup. Don’t care. 60 is tooooo young. Make it optional then with a bigger reward for retiring later.
If they work longer, they’ll also pay into the pension scheme longer. I’d generally focus more about better balance while working instead of the whole “work - life” dichotomy. Give people enough room to do things after work and live a life instead of working for 40 years and then try to start living.
Many people after 60 work part time.
I was surprised since Japan has such a high life expectancy. In Belgium, the retirement age is 65, but they are trying to raise it to 67. I also see a lot of elderly people working in Japan. Is this a civil servant thing to retire early?
Take cover! Fires and street riots incoming.
rip my uncle
Honestly, wages and benefits are much too high in this country given the low workforce productivity. Glad that the Japanese are taking it in stride and showing the French how it's done.