After the government revised the East Asian nation’s customary age-counting system, South Koreans awoke a year or two younger.
On Wednesday, the law that was passed in December and abolished the Korean system of calculating age went into effect.
South Koreans Experience Age Reversal
According to the Korean age system, regardless of the actual day of birth, infants are deemed to be one year old on the day of birth, and every January 1, a year is added to people’s ages. An infant born on New Year’s Eve, for instance, becomes two the following day.
In a second counting system that combines the international and Korean age systems, a baby is born at age zero, and one year is added on January 1 of each year.
As a result, if a lady was born in August 2003, she would be 20 years old under the mixed method, 19 years old under the international system, and 21 years old under the Korean system.
According to the new law, the nation would adopt the worldwide system that determines age based on a person’s actual date of birth, making everyone in the country legally one or two years younger.
However, the modification won’t really make much of a difference.
Read more: Protesters Rally Against Medicare Advantage Coverage Restrictions
Mixed Counting and Actual Dates of Birth
Actual dates of birth, as opposed to the Korean system, are already used for many legal and administrative purposes, such as determining age requirements for receiving retirement benefits and access to healthcare services.
Other significant areas, such as school year eligibility, mandatory military duty, and permissible drinking and smoking, are based on the mixed counting approach and will continue to be in place for the time being, according to Minister of Government Legislation Lee Wan-kyu.
The action could clear up social confusion, for instance, regarding senior Koreans who might mistakenly assume they are entitled to pensions and free travel privileges before they actually are.
Read more: Sicker Americans Opting For Medicare Managed Care