Wrinkled Workers Help Defuse Japan’s Pension Time Bomb

The thought of retiring after more than four decades made Hirofumi Mishima anxious. Instead of looking forward to ending his three-hour daily commute, Mishima wanted to work, even if it meant another hour on the train.

“Keeping a regular job is the most stimulating thing for me,” said Mishima, 69, who spent six months trawling the vacancy boards at a Tokyo employment center after retiring from his $77,000-a-year job as an industrial-gas analyst in 2009. “If I was at home all day, I’d get out of shape and my wife would fret about all the extra chores she’d have to do.”