South Korea has its own system of age calculation, so-called Korean age, where a person who is born is given the age of one year instead of zero. After that, a new year is added at each turn of the year, according to the “counting age” method, which is primarily used to calculate the legal age for purchasing alcohol and tobacco.
A person can therefore be two years older than the real age in official documents.
At the same time, the international age system is already partially used, where the age is updated one year after the date of birth.
Conflicts and confusion
But now the system is to be simplified. Starting in June 2023, the country will fully implement the international standard for age counting, where a person’s year of birth is counted from zero and then updated annually according to the date-of-birth principle, several media reports.
– The amendment aims to reduce unnecessary socio-economic costs resulting from legal and social conflicts as well as confusion resulting from the different approaches to calculating age, said Yoo Sang-bum, a member of South Korea’s National Assembly, reports BBC.