Law of total probability problem

probability

The problem says

A company employs $75\%$ of males and $25\%$ of females. The accounting department in this company provides jobs for $12\%$ of the males and $20\%$ of the females.

  • If an employee is chosen at random, what's the probability that he's from the accounting department?

Let $M$ be the event that the person is male, $F$ is the event that the person is female. Thus $P(M) = 0.75$, $P(F) = 0.25$. Let $A$ be the event that the person is from account dept.
$$P(A) = P(A|M)P(M) + P(A|F)P(F)$$

But I'm confused, is $12\%$ $P(A|M)$ or $P(M|A)$? Same for female part, and why?

Best Answer

You are told that the accounting department provides jobs for 12% of the males. In other words, among the males, $12\%$ are in the accounting department. In other other words, given that one is male, there is a $12\%$ chance he is employed by accounting: $$P(A|M) = .12$$

To get a better understanding, trying drawing a picture. Or, imagine a company outing in which the employees wear their department tags. If the employees are separated into male and female, then $12\%$ of the males will be wearing accounting tags.

You are not told the chance that one is male given that they are in accounting, $P(M|A)$. You need to calculate this.

Similar reasoning follows for females.

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