Will age weaken the Asian tiger economies?

AT 4.30AM hundreds of people are already spilling into the road outside Seoul’s Namguro station. They are not here for the trains, which will not begin for another hour. Nor are they attracted by the dawn cafeterias (offering blood sausage and flatbread), the upstairs song rooms (offering the comforts of crooning) or the basement spas (offering who knows what). They are gathered instead to offer their labour in return for a day’s wages, at whatever building site needs extra hands. As they wait for a bidder, they smoke, squat and cough. And they speak not in Korean but in gravelly Mandarin.