Millions of South Koreans could soon get younger (on paper)

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA » When Lee Jae-hye goes to the United States, she is 30. When she’s back in South Korea, she is 32.

“It’s so confusing,” said Lee, a video producer in Seoul who frequently flies between the two countries.

That is because South Korea counts people’s ages three ways, often adding a year or two to the international standard. This can present situations ripe for confusion, since age determines roles in the social hierarchy and is important in legal milestones such as when one has the right to drink or vote. It undergirds mundane tasks like filling out official paperwork, and it is key to figuring out how to address elders.

But soon, nearly 52 million South Koreans may step into the world of Benjamin Button, shaving up to two years off their ages (if only on paper), if President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol keeps a campaign promise to scrap the nation’s unique system.

On April 11, Lee Yongho, an official with Yoon’s transition team, announced plans to proceed with the change. Yoon, who takes office in May, hopes to do so by making a change to South Korean civil code by the end of next year.

Lee said the shift would reduce confusion and make communication easier, domestically and internationally. It would also help eliminate “unnecessary social and economic costs,” he said.

The exact origins of the Korean age system are hard to trace, stemming from long-held beliefs, said Yoon In-jin, a professor specializing in urban sociology at Korea University.

“We can’t know or remember the origins of our Korean customs,” he said. “It’s just the way we have done things.”

Here’s how the three ways of counting age work.

Under the first, and most widely used, method — often simply called “Korean age” — people are considered a year old at birth, and they add a year to their age every Jan. 1. This applies even to an infant born on, say, Dec. 31, who would be considered 2 years old the very next day. In other words, the birth year, not the date of birth, determines someone’s age. This method is the one most commonly recognized in social situations.

The second is the one the rest of the world uses: starting the count from zero at birth and adding a year on every birthday. Since 1962, that system has been used in South Korea for most legal and official purposes, such as for medical procedures.

The third, and least common, method is known as “year age.” Like the international system, it starts from zero at birth, but it adds a year of age every Jan. 1 — so that baby born on Dec. 31 would turn 1, not 2, the following day. This method applies to laws such as the Military Service Act — which sets the age of compulsory conscription — and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which decides when children begin school.

Such age-counting methods were previously used in other places with Confucianist traditions, such as China and Taiwan, but South Korea is the only nation that still recognizes them, according to Suh Chan S., a professor in the department of sociology at ChungAng University in Seoul.

Yoon Suk-yeol’s push to change the system has wide public backing. In a survey published in January by the polling company Hankook Research, 7 out of 10 adult respondents supported getting rid of the Korean age system.

Forty percent said the change would ease conflicts within the country’s social hierarchy. A majority, 53%, said reducing confusion at the administrative and legal levels was a good reason to pass Yoon’s proposed change.