South Koreans retire at 52 but want to work until 73, leaving a 13-year income gap

Middle-aged and older Koreans face roughly 13 years without income between retirement and the start of their national pension payments, a new report has found. As a result, most older workers are returning to the job market after leaving their primary careers.

The average age at which older Koreans leave their main jobs is just 52, yet most say they want to keep working until 73 to cover living expenses in retirement.

According to a report released Saturday by the National Pension Research Institute — titled "Analysis of Reemployment and Job Characteristics Among Middle-Aged and Older Workers After Retirement" — the average age at which workers in that demographic left their longest-held primary job was 52.9 as of 2025.

By contrast, the average age to which they hoped to keep working was 73.4 — well above the statutory retirement age of 60. The share of middle-aged and older Koreans who said they wanted to continue working has risen consistently, reaching 69.4 percent as of 2025.

Economic necessity was the dominant reason. More than half — 54.4 percent — said they wanted to work to supplement their living expenses, while 36.1 percent cited the enjoyment of working and 4.0 percent said they wanted to stave off boredom. The findings reflect a reality in which pension income alone is insufficient to sustain a comfortable retirement.

The report also found that involuntary departures from the workforce far outnumbered voluntary retirements. Among the reasons workers gave for leaving their primary jobs in 2025, business downturns, closures or suspensions accounted for the largest share at 28.7 percent, followed by health reasons at 18.6 percent and family caregiving at 16.0 percent.

Mandatory retirement accounted for just 9.8 percent of departures, while only 2.8 percent said they left because they felt it was the right time to stop working. In total, 75.1 percent of departures were involuntary, including dismissals, layoffs and business-related separations.

Caught off guard by early and often unwanted job loss, many older workers move quickly to find new employment.

Using survival analysis based on data from the Korean Retirement and Income Study, the report found that about 80 percent of middle-aged and older retirees successfully re-entered the workforce within two years of leaving their primary jobs. Only about 10 percent remained unemployed five years after retirement.

The likelihood of finding a new job was highest at two months and 12 months after leaving work. After a year of unemployment, the probability of re-entering the workforce dropped sharply — a pattern the report attributed to a stigma effect, in which prolonged joblessness is perceived by employers as a signal of diminished productivity.

However, job quality varied significantly by age group. Workers in their 60s saw consistent gains not only in employment and wage employment rates but also in the share of permanent positions, social insurance enrollment and real wage growth. Real wages for workers in their 60s rose 80 percent between 2009 and 2023 — the largest increase of any age group — suggesting that rising employment in this cohort has translated into better-quality jobs.

Workers in their 70s, by contrast, saw a sharp rise in contract and part-time employment. While this may partly reflect a gradual wind-down toward full retirement, the report noted persistent vulnerabilities: low social insurance coverage and exposure to industrial accident risks that individuals must bear largely on their own.

Enrollment in and receipt of public pension benefits also directly influenced reemployment behavior. Those enrolled in or receiving the national pension's old-age benefit showed a higher preference and probability for re-entering the labor market than those with no pension enrollment or those covered by special occupational pension schemes.

Conversely, recipients of special occupational pensions — such as the civil servant pension, which pays relatively higher benefits — showed a significantly lower probability of seeking reemployment as their pension income rose. The researchers said this indirectly points to the inadequacy of the national pension's old-age benefit as a retirement income safety net.

The researchers called for urgent policy reforms to encourage active labor market participation among older Koreans and support their financial security in retirement. They said incentives to remain in the workforce should be strengthened and job-matching systems that draw on workers' prior experience should be better organized.

In addition, the report called for differentiated policy design: low-cost employment counseling and matching support for job seekers within the first year after retirement, and more intensive vocational training and employment subsidies for those who have been out of work for more than a year.