South Koreans are becoming a year younger after a series of bills passed by the parliament aimed at unifying the country’s age system.
Ahn Young-joon/AP
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Ahn Young-joon/AP
South Koreans are becoming a year younger after a series of bills passed by the parliament aimed at unifying the country’s age system.
Ahn Young-joon/AP
You won’t be young anymore — unless you live in Korea.
South Koreans will soon be a year or two younger, following the official change to the country’s age system.
On Thursday, the country’s parliament, known as the Congress, through a set of invoices requires the use of an international age-counting system, where age is based on date of birth.
South Korea currently uses three age-counting systems, but most citizens follow “Korean age,” whereby a person turns 1 year old as soon as they are born and adds one year old every New Year’s day. And a baby born on December 31st will be considered 2 years old the next day.
The change will take effect next June.
So, technically, children born between now and then can still follow the traditional “Korean age” system.
While the majority of Koreans count by “Korean age”, most seem to favor a move to the more widely used system, where a person is zero on the day they are born and one year is added to the date of birth. every birthday.
More than 80% of Koreans support unifying the age-counting system, according to a statistic September poll of the Government Legal Department.
And 86% said they would follow their birthdate age in everyday life, according to the poll.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol promised to unify the country’s age-counting systems during his election campaign earlier this year, saying they create “unnecessary economic and social costs.”
South Korea has calculated age by date of birth since the 1960s.
But while most East Asian countries have abandoned the traditional age-counting system, some have yet to follow suit.
For example, in China, where a nominal age counting system is used, a person is considered 1 year old on the day they were born and they are added one year old by the Lunar New Year.
