South Korea replaces conventional approach of counting age with worldwide customary, decreasing residents’ ages by a 12 months or two.
South Koreans grew to become a 12 months or two youthful on Wednesday as the federal government changed its conventional methodology of counting age with the worldwide customary.
Beneath the age system mostly utilized in South Koreans’ on a regular basis life, persons are deemed to be a 12 months previous at beginning and a 12 months is added each January 1, reasonably than on their precise birthday.
The nation additionally makes use of the worldwide norm of calculating from zero at beginning and including a 12 months on each birthday for medical and authorized paperwork.
From Wednesday onwards, the worldwide customary will now be utilized in all judicial and administrative areas, in line with the Yonhap information company.
“I used to be about to show 30 subsequent 12 months (beneath the standard Korean age system) however now I’ve some extra time earned and I find it irresistible,” Choi Hyun-ji, a 27-year-old workplace employee in Seoul, advised the Reuters information company.
“It’s simply nice to really feel like getting youthful,” Choi added.
The federal government mentioned it hopes the change will ease confusion, citing, for instance, the problem of older Koreans who could consider they’re eligible for pensions and free journey advantages a number of years earlier than they legally are.
“We count on authorized disputes, complaints and social confusion which were brought about over the way to calculate ages will probably be enormously diminished,” Minister of Authorities Laws Lee Wan-kyu advised a briefing on Monday.
Some key areas, together with the varsity 12 months, eligibility for obligatory army service, and the authorized ingesting age, are decided by one other separate age system – generally known as “12 months age” – and this method will stay in place for now, Lee mentioned.
Which means that, for instance, everybody born in 2004 – whether or not January or December – is eligible to start the army enlistment course of from January 1, 2023, as a result of they’re all legally thought-about to have met the minimal required age of 19.
The federal government may contemplate revising using “12 months age” for such areas relying on how the present adjustments go, Lee mentioned.
South Korea handed legal guidelines to scrap the standard methodology and absolutely undertake the worldwide customary final December.
In accordance with a authorities survey performed in September 2022, 86 p.c of South Koreans mentioned they might use the worldwide age of their on a regular basis life when the brand new legal guidelines took impact.
The observe of counting age to incorporate the time spent in a mom’s womb was as soon as conventional in different elements of East Asia together with China and Japan.