Illustration (photo: Shutterstock)
Everyone will get younger: the local parliament in South Korea approved a new law over the weekend that abolishes the traditional method of calculating age, which has been used in the country for centuries. Following the transition to using the international age calculation system, all South Korean citizens will become “younger” by a year or two.
According to the traditional system, every baby born in the country is defined as one year old on the day he was born – and then another year is added to his age on January 1 at the beginning of each calendar year. That is, a baby born on December 31st will be considered one year old on the day he was born – and the day after he will already be two years old, even though he actually lived less than a day.
Alongside this method, the law in South Korea introduced a separate calculation method for determining the minimum age for drinking alcohol and smoking. With this method, a person is born at the age of 0, and also here a year is added to his age on January 1. The law stated that alcohol and cigarettes can be bought from the age of 20 or older according to this method, although in practice a person who has lived for 19 years will still be able to purchase alcohol after January 1 of the year in which he will celebrate his 20th birthday.
Starting in the 1960s, with the progress of globalization, South Korea also started using the international age calculation method – where everyone is born at the age of 0, and a year is added to their age on their birthday. Today, many Koreans use their “Korean age” in everyday life, and their “international age” in official documents or outside of Korea, as well as when communicating with people who may be confused by the traditional age calculation system.
As mentioned, the new law states that as of June 1, 2023, South Korea will only use the international age calculation method in any official document – including identity cards. The submitter of the bill, Yoo Seung-bum of the ruling party, explained that “the purpose of the change is to reduce the unnecessary socio-economic costs that arise from legal and social disagreements regarding age, and to put an end to the never-ending confusion caused by the different ways of calculating age.”
Did you find an error in the article? Does the content in the article violate copyrights that you own? Have you come across an inappropriate ad? Report to us