Subsequent yr, South Koreans will flip a yr or two youthful — if solely on paper.
South Korean lawmakers voted on Thursday to standardize the way in which the federal government counts an individual’s age, in an try to maneuver away from the usage of a number of alternate strategies — together with a distinctively Korean custom of counting individuals as 1 at start and including a yr on Jan. 1.
The concept of uniting behind one normal gained traction, even because it bumped up in opposition to a convention that touched on many elements of on a regular basis life: from the mundane duties of filling out paperwork to authorized milestones like the appropriate to vote.
Nonetheless, traditions can die exhausting, and there’s no assure that the brand new system will likely be utilized in extra casual circumstances. In South Korea’s hierarchical society, for example, age determines the way in which one individual speaks to at least one one other, and the legislation can not compel individuals to stay to the only system in these conditions.
“South Korea is getting youthful!” the Justice Ministry stated in an announcement asking individuals to “unite” behind the brand new system for official paperwork that can convey the nation into alignment with the worldwide normal.
Voting almost unanimously, the Nationwide Meeting handed the invoice and despatched it to the cupboard, which should approve it earlier than it heads to President Yoon Suk Yeol. The simplified construction was promoted by the president throughout his marketing campaign earlier this yr. He’s anticipated to signal the invoice, clearing the way in which for it to take impact six months later.
Utilizing only one age counting system would “decrease pointless conflicts associated to age and to ascertain social practices that conform to worldwide requirements,” the invoice stated.
South Koreans have counted their ages in three other ways for many years. In on a regular basis life, they’re a yr previous at start and rely up each New 12 months’s Day. In some contexts — when figuring out one’s eligibility to drink, smoke or serve within the navy, for instance — they merely subtract their start yr from the present yr. And for many authorized and official functions, they observe the remainder of the world: individuals begin from zero and add a yr on each birthday.
As soon as the invoice is signed into legislation, the federal government would observe the worldwide strategy. Infants below 1 yr previous can have their age counted in months.
Ambiguity round age counting strategies has triggered no scarcity of bewilderment. It has led to disputes over age-based insurance coverage payouts in site visitors accidents. Youngsters’s medicines checklist goal ages, with out specifying how the ages must be calculated. A dispute over an organization’s collective-bargaining settlement wound up earlier than the South Korean Supreme Courtroom earlier this yr, as a result of the settlement didn’t specify which system its age-based pay brackets adopted. (The court docket used the world normal.) Lack of readability over vaccine and Covid testing eligibility has led to chaos at well being clinics and check websites.
The normal technique of counting age is deeply ingrained in South Korean tradition. Beginning yr, not start date, for example, is the idea for the Korean zodiac system. The usage of phrases like “oppa” or “hyung” (methods of addressing an older brother), and “unnie” and “noona,” (which imply older sister) depends on the age of the individuals concerned within the dialog, and that, too, depends on start yr.
However the invoice acquired broad help from the South Korean public. Greater than 80 % of the nation’s residents surveyed by the federal government in September stated they supported the invoice, providing many causes: It might resolve the confusion and inconvenience attributable to the varied age calculation strategies; break down the hierarchical tradition sustained by the Korean age counting technique; and “decrease individuals’s perceived age.”
Greater than 85 % of the respondents in the identical survey stated they’d additionally swap to the usual technique in on a regular basis life if the invoice have been handed.
Whether or not individuals will truly abandon the standard system stays to be seen. That, specialists stated, would take a while.
“The normal method of calculating age is difficult to desert,” stated Shin Jiyoung, a professor of Korean language and literature at Korea College. “It’s so carefully entwined to the Korean language.”
“It’s necessary to acknowledge why now we have saved utilizing it regardless of how complicated it’s,” she added.