"It is said that if you have 1.26 billion won in old age assets, you can't open your hands to your children, but the reality is really not easy." (Mr. A in his 60s)
Then, what does A mean by 1.26 billion won here.
Literally, it's a huge amount of money. According to a survey by financial institutions, this is the money you need assuming that you live to the age of 90 after retirement at the age of 60.
Life is called 'encore career' in English. This means that the audience exerts social influence and pursues the meaning of life by pioneering a new career later in life like shouting "encore" because they want to see their favorite singer on stage again.
Recently, the concept of "encore life" has become a new trend, going further from "encore career" to making life after retirement a golden age of achievement and happiness through new challenges and continuous activities.
To be an "encore life" like this, you need to have health and basic economic power. However, the average retirement age in Korea has accelerated to 56, and the actual retirement preparation is quite insufficient.
In particular, economic power has been considered a key factor in happiness in old age, but the degree of preparation is the most insufficient.
Compared to the appropriate cost of living for stable retirement, the actual funding was 1.2 million won short of the minimum cost of living, and about 200,000 won short of the minimum cost of living.
Although the actual retirement period was nine years earlier than desired, four out of five households still felt that their retirement preparations were insufficient.
According to a recent report released by KB Financial Group, the appropriate cost of living for retirement is 3.5 million won per month and the minimum cost of living is 2.48 million won per month.
Appropriate living expenses refer to expenses including travel, leisure activities, and grandchildren's allowance in the minimum living expenses required for basic food, clothing, and shelter.
This year's appropriate monthly living expenses of 3.5 million won was 190,000 won less than the 2023 survey. This is interpreted as the effect of the expected cost of living, which has increased vague anxiety due to COVID-19, in place.
The actual amount available for procurement was 2.3 million won per month, which was only 65.7% of the appropriate living cost. This is an analysis of the results of KB Financial's survey of 3,000 men and women living in Seoul, Gyeonggi, six major metropolitan cities, and Sejong City between the ages of 25 and 74.
The actual retirement age was also earlier than I hoped.
The average retirement period desired by Koreans was 65 years old, but in reality, they retired at 56 years old on average, nine years earlier.
The average age to start preparing for economic retirement was 48. Considering that the average retirement age is 56, the preparation period for retirement is short. 15.2% of respondents said they had no economic preparation plan for retirement.
By age, those in their 50s accounted for 29.5%, followed by those in their 40s (21.1%), those in their 60s or older (16.7%), and those in their 30s (13.6%). Only 4.0% of the respondents said they would start preparing for retirement under the age of 30.
When it comes to procuring retirement living expenses, the dependence on 'pension' was overwhelmingly high.
More than 60% of the amount available for retirement living expenses was planned to be raised using pensions such as the national pension, private school, military and public employee pension, retirement pension, personal pension, and housing pension.
To this end, households had an average of 2.9 pensions and 53.8% had an additional personal pension.
Depending on whether or not they have a personal pension, households (61.2%) were twice as satisfied as those who did not (34.4%).
The percentage of respondents who said they were "unsatisfied" with their current lives was only one-third of those who did not have personal pensions (10.2%), confirming a positive correlation between whether they had personal pensions and their satisfaction with retirement life.
They were still passive about preparing retirement funds using real estate, which accounts for 75% of Korean household assets. Only 32.3% of households were willing to join the housing pension.
As for the preparation of retirement funds through housing downsizing, 59.7% of respondents said they were willing to use it. In terms of downsizing, those in their 70s (48.1%) preferred the most, and those in their 80s and older (25.2%). He replied that he would put the funds in his withdrawal account and use them for living expenses.
It was found that 80.4% agreed with "Aging In Place," which wants to grow up independently and safely while living in familiar homes and communities. This is 14.3 percentage points higher than the 2023 survey (66.2%).
The concept of "neighborhood" considered by Koreans is "within 30 minutes of walking" (39.2%) and medical facilities, convenient transportation, natural environments such as parks, and shopping facilities are preferred infrastructure conditions.
Health (48.6%) and economic power (26.3%) were cited as the most important factors for happy retirement.
Nevertheless, only 19.1% of households thought they were well prepared for retirement.
Expectations for retirement life compared to the global society were significantly lower in Korea (11.0%) than in the global (34.0%).
Hwang Won-kyung, head of KB Financial Management Research Institute, said, "Korean society has already entered a super-aged society, but economic preparation for retirement is still insufficient, contrary to its will." "This report will be a practical guide for retirement preparation and, socially, basic data for establishing an institutional support system for the increase of the elderly population."