SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - MAY 10: After inauguration ceremony, president Yoon Seok-yeol greets people at the street in Seoul, South Korea on May 10, 2022. (Photo by Lee Yong-Ho / Pool/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Everyone in South Korea may soon be turning a year younger.
Yes, younger.The country is unique in that it uses three different systems to calculate ages, including one that means a baby born on December 31 could be 2 years old by the next day.
It’s a practice President Yoon Suk Yeol, who took office this week, wants to change.Although the country has used the international age system – the one used by virtually everyone else – for legal and administrative purposes since 1962, Koreans largely go by their own system when determining how old they are."Due to the different calculations of legal and social age, we have experienced unnecessary social and economic costs from persistent confusion and disputes over calculating age when receiving social, welfare and other administrative services or signing or interpreting various contracts," the new president’s transition team chief said at a recent press briefing.A spectator holds her baby as she waits for the start of the men's 10km sprint biathlon event during the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games on February 11, 2018, in Pyeongchang. (FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images) Under the Korean age system, a baby is 1 year old when they are born.
According to a Korean embassy, one of the many theories on why is that the nine months spent in the womb are counted and rounded up.