South Korea formally adopted an international standard for measuring age on Wednesday (June 28), after public pressure to end the traditional practice of considering babies a year old when they are born.
Lee Wan-kyu, the minister for government legalization, said the change would greatly reduce “legal disputes, complaints, and social confusion that have been caused over how to calculate ages,” while decreasing costs related to the mixed-use of age standards.
Koreans can be up to three different ages
Prior to the law, there were three ways of measuring age in South Korea. The first, referred to as “international age” refers to the system of measuring time used by the rest of the world, where a baby is zero years old the day they are born.
This age is already used by national systems and registries, meaning any change to a person’s age spurred by this policy change will not affect pension eligibility.
The second is the traditional system known as “Korean age,” which considers a baby’s age to start at one, and then adds a year at the start of each year.
That system was first created by ancient Chinese astrology, which tied people’s ages to the 12 animals of the zodiac system, and standardized people’s birthdays to the Chinese Lunar New Year. The Koreans adopted this system but changed the starting date to January 1st when the country adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1896.
There is also a third way some Koreans use called “calendar age.” This system considers children to be zero years old upon their birth, but adds a year to their age every January 1st. So, if a child was born on December 30, they would turn one at the start of the new year, despite only being two days old.
What’s my age again?
While the government expects some Koreans to continue using their traditional age in their personal life, a recent poll by the government found that 86.2% of the country would embrace an international standard.
Still, some parts of civil society will continue to use unorthodox ways of measuring age.
For example, the national minimum age to buy nicotine or alcohol in South Korea is 19. However, the government has confirmed it will continue to measure that requirement by year, not month—so someone born in January 2004 and someone born in December 2004 are both old enough to buy booze.
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