Japan's retirees opt to live abroad
| • | Charts: No guarantees at home |
By Mari Yamaguchi
Associated Press
TOKYO — When Noriko Komatsuzaki retired in 1992 from her teaching job, she realized she could do one of two things.
She could stay where she was, live in a cramped old house and spend most of her time alone, with nothing to do. She chose the second option — to leave Japan.
Underscoring a growing lack of confidence in their government's ability to assure them a safe and comfortable future, elderly Japanese are opting in record numbers to retire abroad.
The trend reflects a pessimism over the nation's future, after repeated failures at getting Japan's once-fabled economy out of the dumps, and a less concrete fear that Japan's postwar miracle may be over.
"Times have changed, and many people worry that Japan is not the kind of place where they can live comfortably anymore," said Satoshi Ikegawa, an analyst with the state-financed Nippon Research Institute.
"The world has become a smaller place. More people are now open to retire overseas if that gives them a better life."
For 76-year-old Komatsuzaki, it certainly has.
In 1994, she moved to the Philippines where she now lives in a spacious house in a quiet neighborhood in the Manila suburbs. A chauffeur takes her to her ballroom dancing lessons three times a week. Two live-in maids do everything from the cooking to the laundry.
"I'm enjoying a kind of luxury which is impossible in Japan," she said.
The economic forces behind the trend are clear.
With the longest life expectancy of any country in the world, Japan is facing a "graying" crisis. The increasingly high percentage of retirees, coupled with a steep decline in birthrates, has driven the national pension and health insurance plans to the verge of bankruptcy.
Wages are among the highest in the world, but don't go very far because so are the prices for just about everything.
"When I retired, I had no plans but to live quietly in my hometown," Komatsuzaki said in a telephone interview from her home in Paranaque City. "But soon the economy started going downhill and I felt so insecure. I had no income but pension money. So I said, no way, this wouldn't work."
Then she did the math.
The average monthly salary for a skilled worker is about $2,500 in Tokyo. In Manila, a similar worker would make about $120 — significantly less than the $1,515 monthly pension of the typical Japanese retiree.
In Manila, a can of Coca-Cola costs 23 cents; a movie ticket for a regular seat, $1. In Tokyo, a Coke costs 90 cents; the movie ticket, $14.60.
Living abroad has become more common for Japanese of all ages in recent years, whether for work or study.
Following a steady increase in recent years, the number of Japanese who lived more than three months abroad hit a record 811,800 in 2000, government statistics show.
But Shintaro Yamamoto, with the government's Social Insurance Agency, said the outward-bound trend is most striking among older Japanese. He said the number of pension recipients overseas in 2000 nearly doubled to more than 10,000 from 5,700 in 1996.
That is especially surprising because making the decision to live overseas is difficult for the elderly here.
For hundreds of years, Japan's feudal rulers forbade travel abroad, so anyone who left would face the death penalty upon return. Though that policy ended about 150 years ago, there is still a strong psychological resistance to the idea of leaving Japan behind.
Social barriers exist as well.
Traditionally, the oldest son was expected to take care of his parents. Because he was not free to roam much, there was not much incentive for the parents to seek other shelter.
But thinning family ties and the increasing frequency of layoffs and restructuring-inspired transfers have made that tradition largely a thing of the past.
When Japan's economy was booming in the mid-1980s, the government encouraged elderly citizens to move elsewhere, with a plan to create Japanese retirement communities at resorts in Spain, Australia and New Zealand.
The plan was scrapped after it met with criticism that its main beneficiaries were Japanese contractors and that the influx of Japanese money was overheating local real estate markets.
Many of the elderly participants in the plan also found themselves uncomfortably ensconced in "Little Japan" enclaves with little contact with the communities around them.
Today, older Japanese going abroad are more sophisticated. But for some, a half-year-abroad compromise appears to be a more palatable answer.
Yukio Wada found his home away from home in Chamonix, Switzerland, six years ago. The 69-year-old former employee of a major oil company spends six months there; the rest of the time in Japan.
"It's nothing so serious — you're not leaving this country forever," he said.
"Many things are much cheaper, and it's a great fun to be there. But still, Japan is where I call home."
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