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| Question 1092889:  According to a recent report, 60% of U.S. college graduates cannot find a full time job in their chosen profession. Assume 64% of the college graduates who cannot find a job are female and that 39% of the college graduates who can find a job are female. Given a male college graduate, find the probability he cannot find a full time job in his chosen profession?
 Answer by Theo(13342)
      (Show Source): 
You can put this solution on YOUR website! set up a table that looks like this: 
 
 
               % can find a job         % can't find a job       % total
male                24.4                      21.6                 46.0
female              15.6                      38.4                 54.0
total               40.0                      60.0                100.0
 you start off with 60% of all students who can't find a job which means that 40% can.
 
 you then are told that 64% of the students who can't find a job are female.
 64% of 60% is equal to .64 * .60 = .385 * 100% = 38.4% of all students are females that can't find a job.
 the balance have to be males, therefore 60% - 38.4% = 21.6% of all students are males that can't find a job.
 
 you then are told that 39% of the students who can find a job are female.
 39% of 40% is equal to .39 * .4 = .156 * 100% = 15.6% of all students are females that can find a job.
 the balance have to be male, therefore 40% - 15.6% = 24.4% of all students are males that can find a job.
 
 from the table, you can see that the total percent of males is 46% and the total percent of females is 54%.
 
 you are asked to find the probability that a graduate cannot find a job given that he is a male.
 
 the probability that he is a male is 46%.
 
 the probability that he is a male and can't find a job is 21.6%.
 
 21.6 / 46 = .4695652174
 
 the probability that a college student can't find a job given that he is a male is .4695652174 which is equal to 46.96% rounded to 2 decimal places.
 
 this might make more sense if you put it into numbers.
 
 assume 1000 students in total
 
 60% can't find a job.
 40% can.
 
 this means 600 can't find a job and 400 can.
 
 64% of the ones who can't find a job are female.
 this means that .64 * 600 = 384 female who can't find a job.
 this means that 600 - 384 = 216 males who can't find a job.
 
 39% of the one who can find a job are female.
 this means that .39 * 400 = 156 females who can find a job.
 this means that 400 - 156 = 244 males who can find a job.
 
 add up the total females and you get 384 who can't find a job plus 156 who can for a total of 540 female graduates.
 
 add up the total males and you get 216 who can't find a job and 244 who can for a total of  460 male graduates.
 
 your table will look like this:
 
 
 
               % can find a job         % can't find a job       % total
male                244                       216                  460
female              156                       384                  540
total               400                       600                 1000
 you want to know the probability that a student can't find a job in his profession given that the student is a male.
 
 216 male students can't find a job.
 the number of male students is equal to 460.
 
 the probability that a student can't find a job given that the student is a male is equal to 216 / 460 = .4695652174
 
 the formula to use is:
 
 probability that a student can't find a job given that the students is a male is equal to the probability that the student is a male and can't find a job divided by the probability that the student is a male.
 
 in algebraic terms, this would be p(NJ given M) = p(NJ and M) / p(M)
 
 p(M) is the probability that the student is a male.
 p(NJ and M) is the probability that the student can't find a job and is a male.
 
 from the first table, you can see that:
 
 p(M) = 46%
 p(NJ and M) = 21.6%
 
 p(NJ given M) = p(NJ and M) / p(M) = 21.6% / 46% = .4695652174
 
 that equivalent to 46.96% rounded to 2 decimal places.
 
 from the second table you can see that the number of men out of a total 1000 students who can't find a job is 216 and that there are 460 men.
 
 216/460 = .4695652174 which is equal to 46.96% rounded to 2 decimal places.
 
 the number of students was chosen to be 1000 because the arithmetic was easier that way and there was a direct correlation to the percents.
 
 any number of student could have been used and you would get the same percentages.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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