On official documents, South Koreans are expected to become one or possibly two years younger.
Thursday, the South Korean parliament enacted a measure abolishing the country’s two traditional age-counting techniques.
The so-called “Korean Age” system will no longer be permitted on official documents as of June 2023.
Only the internationally known standardized approach will remain.
By adopting the same system as the rest of the world, the government is making good on a campaign promise to decrease misunderstanding.
The most prevalent method of computation in Korea is the so-called “Korean age system,” in which a person is one year old at birth and acquires a year on the first day of each new year.
In a third approach – the “counting age” – a person’s age is estimated by subtracting a year on 1 January from zero at birth. This approach exists primarily to determine the legal drinking and smoking age.
However, South Korea also employs the internationally accepted method of calculating age based on a person’s birthdate, with the first birthday celebrated 365 days after birth.
Thus, a person born on December 31, 2002, will be 19 under the international system, 20 under the counting system, and 21 under the Korean system as of December 8, 2022.
Yoo Sang-bum, a member of the ruling People Power Party, stated in parliament, “The reform aims to reduce unnecessary socio-economic expenditures, as legal and societal disputes, as well as confusion, exist due to the various methods of determining age.”
