Hybrid magnets

After first discovering several patterns in the data and refining them into notable motifs, the overall exploration of 515 Japanese newspaper articles that included the topic ‘work, retirement and pension’ revealed four themes:

experiences and reality of retirement, macro influences and responses triggered by the impending retirement of the baby boomers, continuing work into the post-retirement period and seeing the boomers as a resource for

society. A thematic map generated through doing the analysis is shown in Figure 9, which illustrates the overall structure of the data.

experiences &

reality of retirement

macro influences &

responses triggered by boomer retirement

continuing work into the post-retirement period retiring/retired

boomers as a social resource

views & preparations

different implications

attitudes & behaviour livelihoods societal, economic

& financial influence

lack of skilled workforce

transfer of expertise & skills relocation & housing

working force

utilising knowledge,skills &

experiences

expectations toward boomers’

time, money & energy

Figure 9. Thematic map of the topic ‘work, retirement and pension’ in the Japanese data.

The theme that captures the experiences and reality of retirement focuses mainly on individual experiences of becoming retirees and subjective descriptions of retirement from the viewpoint of the baby boomers. The theme includes boomers’ views and preparations for retirement, different implications of retirement for men and women, attitudes and behaviour during retirement, and changing livelihoods and financial issues as pensioners. In the early phases of the studied period, namely the period before and during early retirement, the newspapers frequently discussed how the baby boomers themselves viewed their approaching retirement. Views on retirement were usually characterised by positive words and phrases, such as

‘looking forward to my retirement years’, ‘living healthy and joyfully’,

‘pursuing hobbies with good health and financial affluence is ideal in retirement life’, and ‘words associated with retirement are a new departure, life re-experienced, freedom and a leisurely lifestyle’. These expressions suggest that for the boomers, retirement indicates the beginning of a new stage of life rather than completion of their working life. The following passage best describes this idea:

Retirement means that one arrives at a transit station. It is not a point to count how many years are left, but rather the addition of years begins from there. Though the railway track for the local line is narrow, you can go anywhere you want in a relaxed fashion. (…) ((J1 Asahi 12.11.2005: (Looking for Sazae-san) Retirement – Addition begins from there, KanzŮ SaitŮ)

It is, however, important to note that quite a few articles distinguished between what men and women anticipated for their impending retirement.

The texts of articles referencing survey results and experts’ opinions demonstrate that men usually wish to spend time with their wives as much as possible and to move to a rural area with beautiful nature, whereas wives prefer to have some time on their own and to stay in an urban area. These different views are related to different ideas about retirement among men and women. Traditionally, Japanese men have had very long working days and not sufficiently committed themselves to domestic and neighbourhood affairs.

Accordingly, they tend to lose their sense of belonging when they retire. The newspapers raised concerns that male boomers might become isolated, being perplexed by what to do with large amounts of free time during retirement.

The next extract describes the situation in which men tend to be trapped quite well:

He looks back at the time of retirement: ‘I had a relatively high position at the company I worked for, and I could puff up my chest with pride. However, in the local community, people are wondering about me, asking “Who are you?” Because of this huge gap, I was in distress thinking that I cannot be of service anymore’. (J2 Asahi 27.5.2005: Retired seniors engaging in community business – Anti-crime activity, supporting personal computer skills and supplementing public service, Takashi Kiyokawa)

On the other hand, wives were more likely to express feelings of stress about their husbands, as the husbands’ frequent presence at home would hinder wives’ social activities. One article introduced the comment of a panellist, who said ‘A husband’s retirement from work is a wife’s retirement from social activity’ (J3 Yomiuri 7.2.2004: Yomiuri-ChźkŮ forum 21: Age of mass retirement – It is high time to revitalise the marital relationship). These different types of anxiety derive from the different spheres occupied by women and men in Japanese society. In fact, Japanese baby boomers represent the generation that established a family model consisting of a male breadwinner and female homemaker (Yamasaki 2001; Okamura 2001).

The other significant element that constitutes the theme experiences and reality of retirement is how the baby boomers formulate concrete attitudes

and behaviour in retirement life. Both newspapers introduced narratives of individual boomers as examples of those who have enjoyed doing what they love to do or who have found things for which they feel a passion. The articles then highlighted how these new activities, whether work or hobby or some other engagement, have brought comfort and a sense of fulfilment to boomers’

lives in terms of both time as well as psychological well-being. The following story depicts the ideal retired life of a chef who ran a famous fine-dining restaurant for 24 years.

Tsuyoshi Miki (57), a former owner-chef, now spends his life ‘in retirement’ in the City of Kobe. In the morning, after seeing off his wife, who has a regular job, he immerses himself in reading.

He just has a light lunch, like pasta or udon noodles, and visits markets and bookshops. He sometimes makes a little side trip to a museum.

He makes dinner every day at the request of his wife. (...) Cooking for only themselves in a relaxed manner gives him a different kind of joy.

He looks back at his past life, which was devoted to working hard from morning to midnight and say, ‘It was a battlefield’.

“I was always striving for 100%, a full load”.

Retirement was already on his mind from that period onwards.

In addition to a ‘disruptive urge unique to the (baby boom) generation’, he had a strong desire to pursue ‘hundreds of dreams’ other than working, such as traveling and reading.

His two children have also become independent. He determined he had peaked as a chef, and then decided to close his restaurant completely.

There is a desire by others to call him back to work. However, he is not motivated to do so. He is satisfied with his current life:

‘I have as much time as I want. I have never been happier.’ (J4 Yomiuri 16.1.2004: [How to live in five-eighths] (12) Relaxing

‘retired life’ – Living at my own pace, YŮko Tsujimoto, YŮji Yamahata, Toshiko Hasegawa & Toshichika Maeda)

The relaxed lifestyle of boomer celebrities such as musicians was also described in the articles, so that readers of the same generation would feel empathy with them and take their story as a model for retirement life. Yet, the majority of stories focused on male baby boomers.

Additionally, the opinions and expectations of intellectuals regarding retiring boomers were visible particularly in the early phase. Articles relevant to this issue tended to repeat statements like the baby boomers should become involved in what they really like to do or what they have never tried before,

which would create satisfaction in their lives and vigour in society. Irrespective of the boomers’ own experiences or the expectations of a third party, the background notion is that Japanese baby boomers are different from previous senior citizens: ‘They are “a mass” who have generated new social phenomena over their life course. And they will have influence on society even when they retire’ (J5 Yomiuri 1.1.2007: [Searching for happiness — New lives for the baby boomers] (1) I am still 60 years old). Implicitly or explicitly, the new role given to the baby boomers in public discussions, a role which the boomers themselves take for granted, is a quest for a meaningful post-retirement life. Texts in the newspapers suggest that it is not until the time of retirement that the baby boomers finally achieve self-fulfilment. This is very much akin to idea of the Third Age (Laslett 1989), which highlights the potential of healthy and energetic retirees. Self-fulfilment, or self-realization, in retirement years is, however, achievable only when one has financial stability, such as a decent pension income. Though the articles typically regarded the baby boomers as affluent, some also dealt with their anxiety about livelihood and gave tips regarding everyday finance and asset management.

Contrary to the subjective construct of retirement explained previously, the second emerging theme in the work and retirement-related topic is the macro influences and responses triggered by the impending retirement of the baby boomers. First of all, this involves descriptions of societal, economic and financial influences, such as an increase in social security expenses, shrinking GDP due to a decrease in the labour force and in consumption, employment promotion among youth, and so forth. All these arguments anticipate what should happen in the near future and most of the discussions occurred only until the year 2007. The aim was to raise readers’ awareness of how tremendous the impact will be on Japanese society when the boomers withdraw from the workforce. Despite many words of warning and much concern, there has not been any discussion of the actual results of the boomer retirement in a macro-economic sense.

The specific issue that both newspapers delineated was the imminent lack of a skilled workforce and the transfer of expertise and skills from the baby boomers to younger employees. Here, the boomers were depicted as having played a vital role in the economic development of Japan in every social sector from industry to education and public administration. Their high skills and expertise in manufacturing especially have been greatly appreciated over the decades in Japanese society. Thus, losing boomer engineers, most of whom are male, would mean a crisis for companies as well as for all of Japanese economy, which would then generate a need for handing down knowledge and techniques from the baby boomers to younger colleagues. The articles covered example stories of a particular company or industry that was suffering from the retirement of skilled boomers and striving to transfer expertise to younger workers. Narratives of the boomers themselves who engage in knowledge transfer were also highlighted:

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. has been organising technical courses in all of its factories since 2004.

In the air-conditioner manufacturing factory located in a suburb of Nagoya City, eight selected young employees are engaging exclusively in courses for a half year, being out of the production line. (…) The aim is for them to get a complete picture of operations.

Their teachers are employees from the baby boom generation.

Due to the long-lasting recession, the employment of new graduates has been restrained for years. Of the 400 full-time technical workers, those who are 50 years old and over occupy nearly 40 per cent [of positions].

‘We were worried about the future of the factory after our retirement. The request that we have insisted on for many years has finally been realised’, says Tetsuo Hirota (58), the plant foreman, who looks proud.

(…)

Skills equipped with rich experiences cannot be easily replaced by machine or instruction manual. (J6 Asahi 6.1.2006:

(Editorial) Tomorrow for the baby boomers – It is a waste to get rid of their skills)

Handing down the skills, knowledge and experiences that the baby boomers accumulated throughout their long working careers has drawn the attention of researchers, too:

Takahiro Fujimoto, a professor in theory of technology and product management at the University of Tokyo, proposes that

‘there are many baby boomers who know about the good flow of overall manufacturing, from designing to sales. It is an urgent task to educate them as “teachers”. Large corporations should establish a teachers’ school within the company.’ (J7 Yomiuri 10.6.2008: [Persons-Works] Education for manufacturing – Handing down high-level skills to younger employees, Taku Iwasaki)

The newspaper texts, including the previous two extracts, recognise the magnitude of the baby boomers’ contribution to the advancement of Japanese industries. This is far from socio-cultural constructions of the boomers as a problem (Phillipson et al. 2008; Bristow 2016) or seeing them as contenders backed by their selfish characteristics and strong sense of entitlement (Hudson

& Gonyea 2012), as identified in British and American studies. The newspapers Yomiuri and Asahi not only looked at the work done by boomers involved in manufacturing, but also those in the public sector. Despite the majority of the articles indicating the gender of the baby boomers as male, their female counterparts were not completely left out. Women were visible when the question was, for instance, about transferring educational expertise in schools from veteran teachers to younger colleagues.

Another aspect of the macro influence and responses to the impending boomer retirement has to do with relocation and housing. Although the issue includes several stories about individuals, most articles referred to initiatives taken by local municipalities to facilitate the expected move by retired boomers from urban cities to rural areas, including back to their hometowns.

Reflecting the anticipation of societal change, the texts were again located mostly in the periods before and during early retirement.

Identifying distinct patterns in the category of ‘work, retirement and pension’ uncovered the third theme – continuing work into the post-retirement period. Surprisingly, the proportion of work-related passages exceeded that of retirement-related texts throughout the study period, though male baby boomers again predominated in the overall media discussions. The articles approached the theme from different angles. The most remarkable angle was, however, the extension of working life, or in other words, postponement of retirement. This ranged from the introduction of new legislation regarding raising the retirement age to either practices of postponing retirement at specific companies so as to ensure a continued labour force or to the decisions of individual boomers to continue working.

The prolongation of work does not necessarily apply to the present working place where one has spent long years. Rather, a notable number of articles mentioned examples of boomers who had changed careers after retiring earlier from previous jobs or who had started their own business or a new activity following official retirement. New work could take many forms. It is usually related somewhat to the previous career, utilising accumulated experiences, expertise and networks, which is typically practiced among engineers. Yet, some people have moved into very different fields, such as engaging in agriculture, fishery work or establishing a restaurant. The central idea underlying the actions of these people is that working has been an integral part of their identity and continuing to work helps them maintain a high sense of value and purpose. For instance, a man who works part-time at a new workplace after a 40-year career elsewhere at a famous company noted the following:

‘This is a kind of “lifetime employment”. It is a learning to continue working until one’s end of life, and it will become a purpose in life.’ (J8 Yomiuri 11.6.2006: [Non-reserved seat]

Utilising alumni human resources – Cherishing experiences and motivation, Takashi Hatano)

According to a survey conducted by the newspaper Yomiuri on baby boomers, three-fourths of working people responded, ‘I want to work regardless of whether I am 60-plus years old’ (J9 Yomiuri 28.11.2006: [Note for today] Baby boomer teachers wanted, Akiya Taguchi). Extending working life is not often experienced in terms of economic need, but rather as leading to increased pleasure in life. The following paragraph from an article featuring the story about a retiree who works as an amateur tour conductor depicts quite well this idea:

‘I could not imagine that now I have such wonderful new encounters and have expanded my own world, even though I am over 60 years old’. The daily wage is not high, but the possibility of new encounters extending endlessly in front of him is much more attractive. (J10 Asahi 1.1.2007: [Navigation-Enjoying] Life experiences are not for nothing)

The strong attachment to work highlighted in the articles has an association with the ‘quest for a meaningful post-retirement life’ mentioned earlier under the theme experiences and reality of retirement. Given the stories featured in the newspapers, some baby boomers seem to have found meaningfulness by engaging in work during the post-retirement period. Their high level of motivation to work is not only driven by personal preferences or interests, but also satisfies a desire to contribute to society. Social contribution even includes working in developing countries, committing themselves to the industrial and economic advancement of the countries concerned.

The fourth and the last theme is retiring/retired boomers as a resource for society. This is a bridging theme that encompasses the previous themes. It is especially related closely to two themes, macro influences and responses triggered by boomer retirement and continuation of work. However, it still constitutes a discrete theme in its own right. The notion of the boomers as a social resource has several aspects. First, the baby boomers would become an inexpensive but high-quality labour force when they continue working as part-time workers after retirement. This is the economic viewpoint of industries facing the challenge of a declining workforce. Second, continuing work is appreciated in national fiscal terms, too, since the baby boomers remain as active taxpayers. The newspapers then drew attention to boomers’ expertise and experiences that could be harnessed in various fields, from industries to activities on the community level. This discussion entails the idea that if the boomers’ competence is fully utilised, it will help maintain and enhance social and economic vitality of Japan. Municipalities in rural areas also look forward to massive retirement and the economic possibilities it may bring. They expect that the relocation of wealthy, healthy and energetic boomers will contribute to revitalising the regions.

It is noteworthy that the implication of the baby boomers as a social resource has transformed over the course of time during the study period. The articles evaluated in the early phase of the study period tended to regard boomer retirement as an economic crisis, and they considered how to retain a workforce so that the skills and expertise of the baby boomers could be transferred to the younger generation. The essential point had to do with exploiting the rich careers of the boomers for economic purposes even during their retirement years. Here, the focus was mainly on male baby boomers who had a long working history with abundant experiences and knowledge. In contrast, later articles tended to be more optimistic regarding the prospects of boomers retiring but still actively engaging in certain activities, whether as paid or voluntary labour. Community activities and care and service works were especially highlighted in the texts. This indicates a social expectation for baby boomers to undertake a new role in society to help tackle such diverse problems as a low birth rate and ageing population. The idea of ‘the boomers

It is noteworthy that the implication of the baby boomers as a social resource has transformed over the course of time during the study period. The articles evaluated in the early phase of the study period tended to regard boomer retirement as an economic crisis, and they considered how to retain a workforce so that the skills and expertise of the baby boomers could be transferred to the younger generation. The essential point had to do with exploiting the rich careers of the boomers for economic purposes even during their retirement years. Here, the focus was mainly on male baby boomers who had a long working history with abundant experiences and knowledge. In contrast, later articles tended to be more optimistic regarding the prospects of boomers retiring but still actively engaging in certain activities, whether as paid or voluntary labour. Community activities and care and service works were especially highlighted in the texts. This indicates a social expectation for baby boomers to undertake a new role in society to help tackle such diverse problems as a low birth rate and ageing population. The idea of ‘the boomers