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Pedestrians in Seoul's Myeong-dong shopping district (icon image)
Photo: Chung Sung-Jun / Getty Images
South Korea's parliament has ordered a rejuvenation cure for the country: With a standardization of the methods for calculating age, which was already decided on Thursday, some people in the official documents are up to two years younger.
According to the decision, from June 2023 the country should adopt the international method of determining age by date of birth.
So far, various age calculation methods have been used in South Korea: According to the so-called Korean age, a baby is already one year old at birth.
On every January 1st - and not on the actual birthday - a year is added.
Different ways of counting – for example for alcohol consumption
There are also two other methods of calculation: for example, to determine the legal drinking age, babies are counted as zero years old at birth, and on every January 1st they become one year older.
Since the 1960s, some authorities have also been using the international standard, which is based on the date of birth.
For example, the official documents for South Koreans have different ages.
For example, a person born on December 31, 1992 in South Korea on December 9, 2022 is 29 according to the international standard, 30 according to the alcohol consumption system and 31 according to the Korean age.
Majority according to poll for unification
This "confusion" should now be over by June 2023 at the latest, as the parliament announced.
Then only the international system should apply.
President Yoon Suk-yeol advocated the change, pointing out the high administrative costs, among other things.
According to a survey, more than 80 percent of those surveyed welcomed standardization of the systems.
However, South Korea is not the only country that has special systems for official age registration.
In China, too, newborns are “one year old” on the day they are born.
fek/AFP
