South Korea's 51 million people became a year or two younger on Wednesday after reforming the country's age-counting system, which was adapted to international standards.
Brief background: South Korea has two methods of indicating age. One is called the "Korean age" according to which at the moment of birth the age is one year. After that, a year of age is added to a person's age every lunar year – and not on his birthday, as is customary throughout the world.
South Koreans pleased with change in age counting system // Photo: Reuters
Sounds complicated? That's not all. In South Korea, there is also a "counting age" or age of fitness, in which a newborn is zero years old at birth, but every January 1 a year is added to it, regardless of the birthday. And if these are not enough, there is also a third method – the one we all know – in which the newborn is recorded as zero years old, and every new year is added to him on his birthday. This method has been used by South Koreans since the 1960s for medical and legal purposes.
Starting today, the age registry in Korea will refer to a person's date of birth and treat their first birthday as indicating a person's age as one year old. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol vigorously pushed for legislation to change the system, arguing that the previous system had an "unnecessary social and economic cost."
A South Korean citizen introduces the change in the age counting system in the country,
The use of the two traditional methods has caused problems for the country's insurance industry and various problems in the transfer of government allowances, due to a distinction between a person's "medical age" and the "official age" determined by the state.
Polls last year revealed that three out of four South Koreans supported changing the age counting system. Indeed, in December the Korean Legislative Assembly voted to abolish the two age counting systems and adopt the Standard Model.
Jeon Lee, a resident of Seoul, told Israel Hayom: "Whenever friends from our country would ask me how old I was, I would say it was complicated. The Korans have great respect for our tradition and our way of doing things, but the cost of the Qur'anic counting system has simply become too great. And in general, it's very nice for me to be a year younger."
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us