North Korea has raised the mandatory retirement age for office workers by three years to reflect the country's population aging and demographic changes
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SEOUL — North Korea has raised the mandatory retirement age for office workers by three years to reflect the country's population aging and demographic changes, according to a North Korean academic paper on Wednesday.
A revised labor law in 2024 stipulates that the retirement age for office workers eligible for state pension benefits is now 63 for men and 58 for women, according to the paper published in the 2026 first issue of the Journal of the Kim Il Sung University, seen by Yonhap News Agency.
Under the country's labor law adopted in 1978, the retirement age had been set at 60 for men and 55 for women, but the revision extended the criteria only for office workers, while leaving that for manual laborers and farmers unchanged.
The amendment was adopted by the standing committee of the North's assembly in September 2024, according to the paper.
It was previously known that North Korea raised its working-age and voting-age thresholds, but it marked the first confirmation that the country has extended the retirement age only for office workers.
"The revisions reflect the evolving pension system and growing importance of intellectual labor," the paper said. "Under conditions where the population is aging and life expectancy is increasing, raising the pension age is a natural move."
North Korea is experiencing a low birth rate and population aging, Yonhap news agency reported.
According to the data from South Korea's Ministry of Data and Statistics released in December, people aged 65 or older accounted for 11.4 per cent of the North's population of 25.87 million as of 2024, classifying it as an "aging society" under international standards.
North Korea's total fertility rate stood at 1.60 in 2024, below the replacement level of 2.1, the data showed.
North Korea, meanwhile, revised its constitution in October 2024, raising the minimum working age from 16 to 17, and the voting and candidacy age by one year to 18.