30 going on 29: How South Korea has become a year younger overnight

South Korea has turned back time on its citizens. On Wednesday, more than 50 million South Koreans woke up to being a year or two younger, as a new law came into effect concerning age. The change in age comes after the South Korean parliament had passed a law on the same in December to scrap the country’s traditional method of counting age. As per the law, the so-called ‘Korean Age’ system will no longer be permitted on documents and only the standardised method will remain. In fact, President Yoon Suk-yeol had pushed strongly for the change when he ran for office last year. The traditional age-counting methods created “unnecessary social and economic costs”, he had said. Reacting to the change, Seoul-based housewife, Lee Jung-hee told news agency AFP: “It feels good. For people like me, who were supposed to turn 60 next year, it makes you feel like you’re still young.” What is ‘Korean age’? In South Korea, when a baby is born it is considered a year old. As the year changes on 1 January, the child gains one more year. South Koreans also count age based on their birth year and not days. A child born in December then is already two by January. The country is the last East Asian country to use this method of counting age; China, Japan, and even North Korea dropped this system decades ago, but it has endured in the South. Why the change in the system? The change in counting of age is to bring the country in line with the rest of the world. Earlier, Lee Yong-ho, the chief of the president-elect’s transition committee, had said that the different age calculations resulted in persistent confusion” and unnecessary social and economic costs. The call to change the way South Korea counted age came in January last year when health authorities used the international age and Korean ages interchangeably to set guidelines for  COVID-19 vaccine guidelines and policies , reports The Korean Herald. This created a lot of confusion. The government also hopes that the change in systems will ease confusion; for instance, the issue of pension for elderly Koreans as well as free travel benefits. The change in the way South Korea counts age will also ease the country’s linguistic-linked hierarchies, reports AFP. Anthropologist Mo Hyun-joo told AFP, “Age really matters because it affects one’s relative social status and dictates which titles and honorifics one must use for others. It’s hard to communicate with people without knowing their age.” With the change, South Korea’s “hierarchical age-based culture (might) become neutralised a little” over time, she noted. [caption id=“attachment_12798742” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] The new law carves out some exceptions. South Korea will keep the old age-counting method for determining when kids start elementary school and when young men must get a physical for military conscription. Image used for representational purposes/Reuters[/caption] But does Korea follow the international system? Yes, it does. This means South Korea has three ways to count age. For legal and administrative processes, the country has been using the international counting system since 1962. In the other official way of counting age, babies are born at age 0 and gain a year annually on 1  January. Under this system, someone born in December 2020 is already one by January, even if they don’t turn one until December 2021. This method is mainly used to define the legal age for areas of law that affect a significant percentage of the population, including military service conscription, reports BBC. The third is the ‘Korean’ age system where everyone is already a year old at birth and becomes older on New Year’s Day regardless of the birth date. What are the problems with the traditional system? “There would be much less confusion if we could have the same idea of what it means to be how old we actually are,” Lee had said earlier. A wage dispute complaint was dragged to the Supreme Court, which ruled that workers should consider their international age when the company officially communicates to them its plan involving extra wages. There have also been cases of parents trying to cheat the birth registration system because of worries that their children born in December will be at a disadvantage at school, as a result, later in life, reports BBC. Has there never been an effort to change the system? In the past, South Korean authorities have tried to bring in a uniform age-counting system. In 2019 and 2021, two separate lawmakers proposed legislation to back the international age system. However, the bills were not signed into law. What are the sentiments of the public? When asked about the change earlier, seven out of 10 Koreans supported the move, according to pollster HanKook Research. And as time reversed in South Korea on Wednesday, several people celebrated. One of them was Kim Ji-soo, an office worker. He told the Wall Street Journal that he had turned 30 in January. But with the new system he will be 29. Park Jeong-yeon, also an office worker, also expressed her happiness at turning 28 from 30. She said that this gave her more time to meet her parents’ goal that she marries by her mid-30s. However, some experts have their reservations. Jang Yoo-seung, a senior researcher at the Oriental Studies Research Centre in Dankook University told BBC that the Korean age is a reflection of tradition. “Our society does not seem too concerned about abandoning tradition. Are we at risk of abandoning our own uniqueness and culture and becoming more monotonous,” he asked. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.