On April 1, with the official implementation of the "Law on The Employment and Stability of the Elderly", Japanese society will officially enter the era of retirement at the age of 70 from this moment on.
According to Japanese media reports, the revised Employment Stability Law for the Elderly was passed in March last year, and after its formal implementation, Japanese companies can ensure employment opportunities for the elderly who are willing to work until the age of 70 by raising or canceling the retirement age and re-employment. According to the regulations, as a party to the employment, the enterprise must ensure the re-employment of those employees who originally retired at the age of 65, and the employees of the enterprise who have reached the age of 65 can voluntarily stay in the original company, or they can choose to work in other companies for another 5 years until they retire after the age of 70.
Elderly people working in garment factories
In fact, the Japanese government has amended its laws three times on the issue of retirement age. Before the 1970s, Japan generally implemented the 55-year-old retirement system; after the 1970s, Japan introduced a 60-year-old retirement policy; in 1986, Japan's "Employment Promotion Law for middle-aged and elderly people" was officially renamed the "Employment Stability Law for the Elderly", stipulating that enterprises have the obligation to hire workers as long as possible to 60 years old; in 2013, the revised "Elderly Employment Stability Law" was formally implemented, stipulating that enterprises have the obligation to take measures to ensure the employment of the elderly. Older persons who have reached the age of 60 and are willing to work should be guaranteed to work until the age of 65.
Elderly people working in takeaway shops
The reason behind the repeated revisions of relevant laws is actually very simple - Japan's declining birthrate and aging problems are becoming more and more serious, triggering a social labor crisis.
Although this law does not have a mandatory effect at this stage, according to the current situation of Japanese society, the Japanese government will definitely promote the compulsory retirement of 70 years old in the future.
According to the latest population dynamic survey released by Japan on July 10 this year, as of January 1 this year, the total population of Japan was about 125 million people, a decrease of about 430,000 people from the same period last year, and the decline reached a record high, decreasing for 10 consecutive years.
However, there are about 36.17 million elderly people over the age of 65 in Japan, an increase of 300,000 over the previous year; the proportion of the elderly over the age of 65 in the total population is as high as 28.7%, up 0.3 percentage points from the same period of the previous year, ranking first in the world. The main working population aged 15 to 64 decreased by 0.28 percentage points to 59.49%, and the aging population is accelerating.
Future demographic trends in Japan
At the same time of aging, the trend of low birthrate has further intensified. Affected by the new crown epidemic, the number of pregnancies in Japan in 2020 has also decreased compared with 2019, and the number of births in Japan is expected to fall below 800,000 in 2021, setting a new low again, and the latest statistics show that Japan's birth population in 2020 was about 848,000, a decrease of about 17,000 compared with 2019, down to the lowest in history since the statistics were available in 1899. Villages and towns in Japan do not even have newborns for a whole year.
In fact, negative population growth is not a new thing for Japan, such a situation has lasted in Japan for 11 years, which is a fatal blow to a country that is in an important period of development, and the implementation of the 70-year-old retirement policy marks the official arrival of Japan's aging era.
The baby boomer generation shinobi "bankruptcy in old age"
Japan's NHK has a documentary called "The Lump Era, Quietly Approaching Old Age Bankruptcy", which presents the helplessness of the elderly born in Japan from 1947 to 1951 or lonely, or supporting their families, and having to insist on work.
The elderly interviewed in the film have only one root problem to say, and they can't make ends meet. The main reason for this is that there are old and low, high prices, and they can no longer make money. In such a situation where the income is not enough, even if it is only 20%, it is only a matter of time before the household with more than 20 million yen of deposits runs out of deposits and goes bankrupt.
Not only in Japan, but in fact, this is really a common phenomenon in human society. People have not dealt with these problems from the root causes at all, so now they are rudely thrown to capitalism and dealt with by money, which is a very irrational but extensive problem in modern society, but now there is no solution, and it is also the culprit of the bankruptcy of the elderly.
Life is an endless race, and one day it will lose completely, and no one can escape. We seem to be looking at our own track, thirty generations leaving some people, forty generations leaving some people, fifty generations leaving some people, until less and less, how wise it must be to run an extra kilometer.
Documentary: Generations of clumps in the sandwich layer
Will Japanese social phenomena occur in China?
The proportion of China's labor force from 2002 to 2017
In the 1980s, a large number of laborers entered major cities such as Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Shanghai, and earned money by relying on simple manual labor, and almost all of these incomes were used for the education of the next generation and the medical care of the previous generation. They are the biggest promoters of reform and opening up, relying on the demographic dividend, China's economy has achieved rapid growth.
"Migrant Work Tide", the work reveals a fiery life and hope.
However, for them, their income cannot afford the high mortgage or rent in the city where they live, on the other hand, their children do not enjoy the city's medical care or education security, and can only attend the school for the children of migrant workers.
The inability to gain a foothold in the big cities meant that when they could no longer work, they eventually had to return to their hometowns. A large part of their children, as left-behind children, are difficult to get a good education, and most of them can only engage in simple manual labor after graduating from junior high school or high school, so they once again embark on the old path of their fathers.
In another ten or twenty years, when they are old, without real estate, social security, and medical insurance, what should the old age life look like?
The enlightenment caused by the intensification of Japan's aging society: Japan is the only super aging society in the world, through a series of problems caused by the increasingly severe problem of low birthrate aging, we should pay considerable attention to the aging society, and we can learn from and learn from some good countermeasures of the Japanese government.
China is also facing the problem of insufficient pensions for the elderly, the world is getting older, and China is one of the fastest aging countries. For the gradual delay in retirement, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security is working with relevant departments to study specific reform plans. If China does delay retirement until the age of 70, for many people, this may already be an age that is prone to illness.
Our bodies are more or less in trouble, and in China perhaps those who are in good health do not need to work after the age of 70 to get paid, while those who need to work after the age of 70 to get paid do not have enough medical protection to make them work after the age of 70. For example, to ensure the employment environment of the elderly; to give certain tax reductions and exemptions to enterprises that use elderly personnel; to improve the implementation of the national insurance system, so that it should be guaranteed to the fullest; to give childcare subsidies to the newborn population; to encourage private enterprises to participate in the cause of old-age care; to deepen medical reform, so that it basically does not cost money and spends less money to see a doctor. Promote the 65-year-old retirement system for the whole people as soon as possible and reduce the burden of pension payment.
With the continuous acceleration of the global aging rate, Japan has taken the lead in entering the era of 70-year-old retirement for all people, which is a helplessness and an inevitability! #人口老年化 #