Abstract
Today Japan is far ahead of the rest of the world on the aging curve of the population and faces unprecedented pressure to delay workers’ retirement. In this national context, workers’ retirement decisions and behaviors are largely determined, at the macro- and mesolevels, by the interplay between the government and employers over reforming mandatory retirement corporate policies thoroughly and uniformly institutionalized across the country’s workplaces, which are set at ages much younger than in most other developed countries around the world. The primary microlevel determinants of retirement include the persistent gender roles, which have still affected many female workers, those currently aged 50 and older in particular, as they are often rendered as primary caregiver for children, aged parents, and the household.
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Notes
- 1.
Rourei Kiso Nenkin in Japanese.
- 2.
Rourei Kousei Nenkin in Japanese. Also, public sector employees participate in the Retiree Mutual-Aid Pension Program (Taishoku Kyousai Nenkin in Japanese) instead of the Old Age Employee Pension Program.
- 3.
The 2013 General Survey on Employment Conditions was not conducted on workers in public-sector employment (MHLW 2015).
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Higo, M., Schröder, H., Yamada, A. (2016). Japan: Determinants of Retirement in a Hyper-Aged Society. In: Hofäcker, D., Hess, M., König, S. (eds) Delaying Retirement. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56697-3_11
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