In the world, generally, to determine a person’s age, just do reference to his date of birth and count from that time years starting from zero. But this method has so far failed in South Koreawhich only starting today 28 June has decided to switch to system international age calculation, setting aside i traditional methods so far followed: according to a law approved last December, in force as of today, all documents officers must report the international age, the same as used in West, which is based on the date of birth (zero) and starts counting the years on every birthday. And so South Koreans will be younger than one or two years.
The turning point has made it possible to unify the complex system of calculation which up to now envisaged the paradox of no less than three different ages for each person: that korean – which starts the years from number one with birth and adds another to the 1° January of each new year -, that of calendar analogous to the Chinese system – which starts from zero and adds a year to the beginning of each new year – and, finally, that international. To give a concrete example, let’s take the singer of “Gangnam Style” Psy. He was born on December 31, 1977, so according to the system international he is 45 years old; 46 according to that of the calendar and 47 according to what until yesterday had been in effect South Korea. With the standardization citizens will therefore be more young of at least a year compared to current methods, but sometimes even two, if one considers, for example, the extreme case of a bambino born on the last day of the year – like Psy – who, based on Korean age, would already be two at the stroke of midnight.
The unification registry will apply to areas administrative e judicialbut not for uses related to National servicean absolute priority in the strict scheme chosen by Only. “The unified system of computing will greatly reduce i social costs caused by different systems of calculation employed so far”, commented the Minister of Government Legislation with satisfaction Lee Wan-kyucited by the agency Yonhap. The international model was one of promise of the electoral campaign of the current president, the conservative Yoon Suk-yeolelected in 2022: the aim was to avoid chaos and unnecessary social costs. In addition to the confusions in the cases of translation from Korean (and vice versa), there have been series problem during the pandemiclCovid-19 in the case of the administration of non-recommended vaccines under a certain age, which prompted many to ask the authorities whether the age referred to was the Korean or international age. A chaos that is now destined to be resolved.