South Korea is changing its age calculation system, and citizens will appear younger.
The decision was made to "resolve the social confusion caused by the mixed use of age calculations," the National Assembly said in a statement.
RFI - Fulfilling a wish shared by many around the world, South Koreans will "get younger" in 2023, thanks to a law that abandons their traditional age calculation system. The current system, widely known as "Korean age," assigns people a year at birth and then adds years every January 1st, instead of on their birthday.
But on Thursday (8), the country's National Assembly approved a series of laws requiring the use of the international age counting system in official documents. These changes will be implemented in June 2023.
The decision was made to "resolve the social confusion caused by the mixed use of age calculations," the National Assembly said in a statement.
In addition to the traditional system, the country also employs another method to determine the legal age to smoke or drink, which assigns zero years of age to newborns and then adds one year for each January 1st.
Since the 1960s, some medical and legal records have also used the international standard.
This means that, for example, on December 9, 2022, a person born on December 31, 1992, is 29 years old in the international system, 30 years old in the Korean drinking system, and 31 years old in "Korean age".
Disparity
President Yoon Suk-yeol promoted this change due to the administrative and social problems caused by this disparity in counting methods.
For some South Koreans, the change is an obvious cause for joy: "I'm getting two years younger, I'm very happy," commented one user on Twitter.
"I turned two years old right after I was born because I was born in December. Finally, I'm about to get back to my real age," he added.