Capacity or necessity? Comparing the socio-economic distribution of productive activities between Italy and South Korea

Much productive ageing research aims to identify the conditions under which older adults engage in productive roles within and outside the family. This study conceptualises two individual-level explanations for productive participation: capacity and necessity. I hypothesise that whether capacity or necessity prevails across different socio-economic groups depends on the degree of social protection guaranteed by pensions and long-term care systems, which varies across countries. Drawing on data from the SHARE and KLoSA surveys, this study compares socio-economic gradients in full-time work and informal caregiving across cohorts of men and women aged 50–75 in Italy and South Korea in 2006/07 and 2014/15. In Italy, where later-life social protection is generous, productive engagement is more common among wealthier and higher-educated individuals, who have greater capacity to engage in productive roles. In Korea, where social protection is limited, working is more common among socio-economically disadvantaged women, who have higher necessity to remain economically productive.