Although it may sound like the plot from a superhero film where some dastardly villain has reversed the age of an entire nation, it is actually the result of a long-expected change to the country’s methods for recording ages. The new law aligns the nation’s traditional age-counting approaches with international standards.
Traditionally, South Korea has practiced two ways to account for a person’s age. Under this old system, babies were considered to be one year old on the day of their birth, but on January 1 each year, an additional year was added to everyone – regardless of their actual birthdays. In essence, a baby born on December 31 would become a two-year-old the next day.
The second system of counting represented a mix of this old method and international ones. Here a baby is born at zero years, but then gains a year every January 1. Therefore a person could be seen as having three different ages, depending on which system you’re relying on.
Then, in December last year, a new law was passed to bring South Korea’s system into accordance with the international approach. That law came into effect this week on Wednesday June 27, meaning that everyone in South Korea effectively woke up a year or two younger.
This change will have little impact on the everyday life of most people. Most of the country’s administrative system already operates on people’s actual birthdays, which are used on passports and driving licenses, as well as other conventions, such as the age of prosecution as a juvenile or the age when one qualifies for retirement or healthcare support.
The older mixed system does still apply to some aspects of the country’s life. For example, entry into schools, the legal age for drinking and smoking, and one’s eligibility for military service have not yet been updated. These changes will be introduced more slowly.
According to President Yoon Suk Yeol, who advocated for this change during his run for office last year, the traditional age system created “unnecessary social and economic costs”, as reported by the BBC.
The traditional age-counting methods were practiced in other East Asian countries, but most have now turned to the international standard. Japan relied on these older methods until 1950 and even North Korea turned to the standardized system in the 1980s.
Source Link: South Koreans Have Just Gotten Younger Due To New Age-Counting Law