“My daughter was born in December 2017, will she start elementary school next year?” “If the age of majority is applied, will a person born in 2004 no longer be able to buy alcohol and tobacco?”

On the 28th of this month, the legal and social age will be unified to the age of majority. However, there are still a number of cases where the younger age is still applied even after the implementation of the Uniform Age Act, so it is expected that there will be confusion for a considerable period of time until it is settled.

Examples include the age to buy alcohol and cigarettes and the age to enter elementary school.

Cho Mo, 55, who runs a hop shop in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, asked on July 7, “If the age is unified, how should I check my ID in the future?” Online communities are asking similar questions, such as, “Will we have to check birthdays in the future?

Currently, the Korean term for age is “counting age,” which is the current year minus the year of birth, and “year age,” which is the official age under the Civil Code. The Act on Unification of Manhood Age states that the age indicated in various laws, contracts먹튀검증, and official documents should be interpreted as manhood age in principle. The Administrative Basic Law and the Civil Code state that “age calculation shall be 10 years old.

Liquor sales corner
[Yonhap Photo]

However, even after the 28th, the Youth Protection Act, not the Age Uniformity Act, will apply to the sale of alcohol and tobacco to young people. The law defines a youth as a person under the age of 19. However, it excludes persons who have reached the age of 19 on January 1 of the year in which they turn 19. In other words, a person born in 2004 (19 years old this year) can buy alcohol and tobacco regardless of his or her age, even after the Age Unification Act.

The Military Service Act also requires people to take a military service test the year they turn 19.

In a press release, the Ministry of Justice said, “In order to change the age to 10, each individual law needs to be revised, so the implementation of the ‘Age Unification Act’ will not immediately change the age standard.” “We will conduct research and opinion surveys in the first half of this year and prepare a revision plan by the end of this year,” the ministry said.

The compulsory school age of 7 years old will also not change. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act requires a child or children in care to be enrolled in elementary school “on March 1 of the year following the year in which the child attains the age of six.

Elementary school entrance ceremony
[Photo by Yonhap].

The confusion is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, as people have long used the older age in everyday life.

My aunt, a 39-year-old office worker, was giving her 30-month-old daughter cold medicine when she remembered an article on the age of 10,000 that she had read recently. She was confused about how much cold medicine to give her daughter, who is 2 years old in Korean and 4 years old in English, because the dosage was written as “5 mL for 2-3 years old and 7 mL for 3-4 years old”.

“I thought it would be less or more effective either way, so I gave her the middle amount,” said Goh. “I wish the dosage label on the cold medicine would be clearer, whether it’s for 10 years old or Korean age.”

Last year, Ha Gil-hwan, 70, who celebrated his 70th birthday in South Korea, was told by a junior who was one year younger, “You’ll celebrate your 70th birthday next year”. With the unification of social age to “10,000 years old,” he decided to postpone his seventieth birthday, which was customarily celebrated at the Korean age.

Enforcement of the Age Unification Act
[Provided by the Ministry of Justice. Resale and DB prohibited].

Some say it will take a long time for the still-awkward age to become fully ingrained in daily life, just as street names and old street addresses are still used together.

“Children already have a concept of older and younger siblings,” said my aunt, a kindergarten teacher (26), “so I’m not explaining the age concept to them yet because I think it will only cause confusion.”

Lee Eun-jae, 17, a student at a high school in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, said, “My classmates joke with each other about calling each other sister and brother from today,” but she added, “It’s not like my best friend suddenly turns into my sister, so I don’t think anyone really cares.”