S Korea changes way it calculates ages

South Korea has passed laws to change its method of counting ages and adopt an international standard that will make its citizens either one or two years younger on official documents.

A year is added every 1 January and Koreans are deemed to be a year old when born. It is the age most commonly cited by Koreans in everyday life.

A separate system exists for conscription purposes or calculating the legal age to drink alcohol and smoke in which a person's age is calculated from zero at birth and a year is added on 1 January.

South Korea has also used the international norm of zero at birth and adding a year on every birthday in the early 1960s for medical and legal documents.

The confusing array of systems will disappear from June 2023 on official documents when the new laws that specify using only the international method of counting ages take effect.

Yoo Sang-bum of the People Power party told parliament that the revision was intended to reduce unnecessary socio-economic costs because legal and social disputes and confusion persist due to the different ways of calculating age.

Jeong Da-eun, a 29-year-old office worker, is happy about the change and says she has always had to think twice when asked about her age in overseas. I remember foreigners looking at me with puzzlement because it took me so long to come back with an answer on how old I was. Who wouldn't like to get a year or two younger? She added.

The origins of the system are not known. One theory is that turning one-year old at birth takes into account time spent in the womb with nine months rounded up to 12. Other people link it to an ancient Asian numerical system that did not have the concept of zero.

Explanations for the extra year added on 1 January are more complicated.

The extra year became commonplace on 1 January as more South Koreans began to observe the western calendar.