“Punished For Getting Older:South Korea’s Age-based Policies and Older Workers’ Rights”, 8 July 2025

Age-based employment laws and policies, a hostile workplace culture, and a weak social security system harm workers in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) as they get older. Mandatory retirement ages force some older workers to retire. Regressive wage policies reduce their salaries. And re-employment programs push them into lower-paid, more precarious work. Inadequate social security compounds this, creating a system that punishes workers for getting older.

This report, based on interviews with 34 people ages 42 to 72 working in South Korea’s public and private sectors, examines the harm three age-based employment laws and policies do to older workers—the mandatory retirement age of 60 or older, the “peak wage” system, and re-employment policies—and how insufficient social security programs exacerbate this. It focuses on how current domestic laws and policies discriminate against older workers, rather than individual employers’ actions.

Human Rights Watch finds that workers from age 40 and up face hostile work environments, ageism, and discrimination based on their older age.

…The South Korean law prohibiting age discrimination in employment, the Act on Prohibition of Age Discrimination in Employment and Elderly Employment Promotion, allows employers to adopt a mandatory retirement age of 60 or older, meaning both public and private sector employers can force workers to retire based only on their age, not job skills.

…Older workers are concentrated in specific, low-paid occupations, such as security guards and care workers, that are seen as suitable for older people and which younger people do not wish to do. Such “occupational segregation” based on age is a form of discrimination.