Kim Dongseon was born in Masan in 1965. While working as a reporter for Hankook Ilbo in 2001, Kim went to Japan where he studied welfare policies for the elderly. Kim has written The Elderly I Met in Yamato-machi based on one-year, on-site coverage of the Yamato area in Japan. He has also written Seven Things You Need to Prepare for Retirement, The 3ㆍ3ㆍ3 Design Plan of Hope to Blow Away All Desperation, through which he presents concrete methods to prepare for a stable life in old age.  Currently, Kim is conducting academic research and lectures and writing on the subject of long-term care, retirement planning, and age discrimination.