A poll found that six out of 10 people support raising the eligibility age for the basic pension and senior benefits from 65 to 70.
Gallup Korea said on May 1 that it surveyed 1,002 South Korean adults aged 18 and older between April 28 and 30.
Fifty-nine percent favored raising the eligibility age from 65 to 70, 30% opposed it, and 12% were undecided.
Support was roughly 60% across age groups. Both progressive respondents (68%) and conservative respondents (59%) expressed similar levels of support, indicating a broad public consensus.
By region, the results were: Gyeonggi–Incheon (60% yes, 27% no); Daejeon–Sejong–Chungcheong (60% yes, 33% no); Gwangju–Jeolla (51% yes, 34% no); Daegu–Gyeongbuk (58% yes, 31% no); and Busan–Ulsan–Gyeongnam (52% yes, 32% no).
In 2015, support and opposition were nearly even at 46% and 47%, respectively. By 2023, support had risen to 60%.
This survey shows a similar trend. In 2015, only those aged 50 and older tended to support raising the threshold, while people under 40 tended to oppose it. By 2023, respondents in their 20s and 30s had shifted toward support, and respondents in their 40s were evenly split, contributing to an overall increase in support.
The current eligibility age of 65 for the basic pension and related senior benefits was set in 1981. In a nationwide 1981 survey of 1,427 people aged 60 and over, 19% said they thought old age began at 70 or older; that share rose to 56% in 2015 and 64% in 2023.
Gallup Korea said this shift reflects more than four decades of population aging. It noted that South Korean life expectancy rose between 1980 and 2024 from 62 to 81 for men and from 70 to 87 for women. Gallup Korea explained that life expectancy refers to the average number of years a newborn is expected to live, also called average lifespan or life expectancy at birth.
When asked who should primarily provide for their retirement — themselves, their children, or the government and society — 60% said they should be primarily responsible for their own retirement, 29% chose the government and society, and only 4% chose their children.
Across most respondent groups, a majority said individuals should bear primary responsibility for their retirement. Those who chose "government and society" were more likely to have lower living standards (32% in the lower class versus 20% in the upper/middle‑upper class), were more often progressive (40% versus 20% conservative), and included 24% of men and 34% of women.
The survey used randomly generated mobile phone numbers and interviewer-led telephone interviews. The margin of error is ±3.1 percentage points at the 95% confidence level; the contact rate was 39.2% and the response rate was 13.3%.
For more details, see the Central Election Survey Deliberation Commission website.
