This file photo, taken July 3, 2021, shows people crossing a street near Hongik University in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, June 27 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea will scrap its traditional method of counting age and adopt the international standard starting Wednesday, resulting in the reduction of a person’s age by one or two years on official documents, officials said.
Under the revisions to the Civil Act and the General Act on Public Administration, multiple age systems will be unified under the internationally recognized system in which age is based on birth date, according to the Ministry of Government Legislation.
In South Korea, three age systems are currently in use.
Under the most commonly used system of so-called “Korean age,” a person turns 1 on the day they are born and adds a year on the first day of the new year.
For instance, a baby born on New Year’s Eve becomes 2 years old as soon as they pass midnight.
The second system is the internationally recognized system, whereby a person’s age is determined according to their birth date, while the third system adds a year to a person’s age on the first day of the new year.
The unified standard will be applied in all judicial and administrative areas, but not for military conscription purposes, calculating the legal age to drink alcohol or smoke, or for school age.
The unified age system was one of President Yoon Suk Yeol’s campaign pledges, citing unnecessary social costs and confusion.
“The unified age counting system will greatly reduce social costs that were incurred due to using multiple age counting systems so far,” Lee Wan-kyu, minister of government legislation, said during a press briefing Monday.
Lee further cited potential civil complaints or legal lawsuits arising from confusion in calculating ages, such as determining eligibility for pensions.
(Yonhap)
