This Wednesday, all South Koreans are a year or two younger. The Seoul government has decided to end its centuries-old age measurement system that used the baby’s pregnancy as a basis for age calculations.
A makeover. All South Koreans looked younger on Wednesday thanks to a change in their country’s age calculation system. Age is measured differently here than anywhere else in the world. When a Korean is born, he is already one year old and does not celebrate his birthday on the day of his birth, but on January 1st. In South Korea, there are actually two standards: the so-called Korean age and the international age. Strange? It is actually a ancestral system that was formerly used in several East Asian countries.
The idea of considering the time that the baby spends in the womb speaks of a desire to make pregnancy sacred, to make it a time just as important – or even more important – than the years after birth. The various countries of East Asia such as China, Japan and even North Korea that used this method of age calculation finally abandoned it a few decades ago. It is therefore South Korea’s turn this Wednesday to adopt the international standard.
A legacy that has become a burden
Although we in South Korea liked this peculiarity, we can clearly see that in recent years the feeling of the population regarding the validity of this heritage has changed. According to a government survey conducted in September 2022, more than 86% of South Koreans said they would embrace the international era in their daily lives once the new law comes into effect. While the international age had been used since the 1960s for everything to do with administrative, medical and legal documents, there was great social confusion, especially abroad, when it came to specifying the age. Should South Koreans refer to their country’s standard or the standard practiced everywhere else? A difficult decision that they should no longer make. “We hope that litigation, complaints or the great confusion created by the different calculation of age will be significantly reduced,” Lee Wan-kyu, minister of public administration, told the Korea Times.
This new measure not only simplifies life for South Koreans, but will also bring happiness to those who are afraid of aging. “I wanted to turn 30 next year, but now I have more time and I love it,” Choi Hyun-ji, 27, an office worker in Seoul, told the Korean Times.