Senior-friendly industries in South Korea today and future policy directions

he scale of the silver economy in South Korea is rapidly expanding, but senior-friendly industries (SFIs) have yet to catch up to growing demand, even as Korea’s demographic crisis poses several daunting challenges to meeting this demand, such as an ongoing shortage of care workers and rising healthcare costs. As these issues affect other industrialized nations as well, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and China, many governments have set out to capitalize on the growing spending power of seniors by fostering targeted industries, and have also sought to address the dilemma of lack of care workers and mounting medical costs through age tech: technologies and systems designed to improve quality of life for older adults. The lack of SFI products, services, and policies in Korea contrasts with the ever-expanding range products, services and policy programs available in other major economies worldwide. The Korean government needs to give this issue the policy attention it deserves, but has thus far failed to do so, eliminating the budget earmarked for fostering SFIs in 2024 and neglecting to include plans for SFIs and age tech in the current national master plan, which runs up to 2025. As of right now, the Korean government has neither plans nor a budget for SFIs. But as the country’s elderly population explodes, it is now incumbent upon Korean policymakers to devise a comprehensive vision for SFIs, and the policies that emerge from such a vision would do well to focus on age tech. But before doing so, policymakers must first understand the conceptual differences between the silver economy and SFIs. In deciding which industries are to benefit from policy decisions, it is essential to clearly delineate the scope of SFIs; only those industries that mainly or exclusively target seniors as customers or end users should be included. Moreover, in Japan and China, ministries with overlapping portfolios work together on common issues. South Korea’s ministries should do the same, jointly establishing and implementing comprehensive plans to promote age tech and SFIs. Only by doing so can Korea hope to mitigate the social and economic costs of its graying population while fostering SFIs as a new engine for economic growth.