Three different systems have been used in the country to calculate the age, and now the change in law aims to harmonize the age.
South Korea’s roughly 50 million population got one or two years younger today, Wednesday, according to a new law. About that news British broadcasting company BBC.
At the end of last year, South Korea’s parliament approved a law amendment, with which the country’s old way of calculating a person’s age will be changed mainly in accordance with the international way.
In official contexts in the legal and administrative fields, the international age is starting to be used. Three out of four of the South Koreans were in favor of change based on a survey conducted last year
The purpose is to clarify the age system and reduce “unnecessary social and economic costs”, the president By Yoon Suk-yeol according to the words. Controversies have arisen, among other things, about insurance premiums and determining a person’s eligibility for state support programs.
A South Korean can have three different ages
In South Korea, three different ways of calculating a person’s age have been used overlapping. For example, 1.7. born in 2000 would now be 22 years old in international age, but is already 24 years old based on his Korean age. In calendar age instead, he would be 23 years old.
The most familiar of them to Finns is the “international age”, where the age at the time of birth is marked as zero and the baby turns one year after birth.
In ordinary everyday life, Koreans use their “Korean age”. According to it, South Koreans would be a year or two older than their international age. According to the calculation method, a newborn is marked as one year old, after which one year is always added to the age on January 1.
In some situations, South Koreans use their “calendar age”, which is again a mixture of the previous two. The calendar age is calculated in such a way that the age of the newborn is marked as zero and then a year is added to the age on the first day of the year.
Not everything changes
Even though the age system was harmonized, in some cases the age will continue to be calculated differently. For example, children start school in the calendar year when they turn six – the same as in Finland.
Also in South Korea’s mandatory military service, a person’s age is calculated based on the year they were born.
Alcohol and tobacco products can still be bought as soon as the year changes to the next one, when the young person reaches the necessary 19 years of age. In the eyes of the law, a young person is therefore seen as the same age, whether he was born on the first or last day of the year.