According to the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent data on the marital status of the 242 million Americans aged 15 years and older, 124.2 million are currently married and 74.5 million have never been married. If one person from these 242 million persons is selected at random, find the probability that this person is currently married or has never been married. Explain why this probability is not equal to 1.0.
p = (74.5+124.2)/242
p is not 1.0, because of things called divorce and death.
To find the probability that a randomly selected person is currently married or has never been married, we need to determine the total number of people who fall into these categories and divide it by the total number of people in the given population.
According to the provided data, there are 124.2 million currently married individuals and 74.5 million individuals who have never been married. To calculate the probability, we add these two numbers together:
Probability = (124.2 million + 74.5 million) / 242 million
Simplifying this expression gives us:
Probability = 198.7 million / 242 million
To further simplify, we can divide both the numerator and denominator by 2:
Probability = 99.35 million / 121 million
Now, why is this probability not equal to 1.0?
The probability represents the likelihood of selecting a certain outcome (in this case, someone who is currently married or has never been married) out of all possible outcomes (the entire population). In our case, the total population considered is 242 million.
However, the probability will never reach 1.0 for two reasons. First, there are other marital status categories to consider, such as divorced, widowed, or separated, which are not accounted for in the given data. Second, the population of interest is 15 years and older, so there may be some individuals in this population who are not married nor have never been married, but are in other categories like divorced or widowed.
Therefore, the probability that a randomly selected person is currently married or has never been married is not equal to 1.0 because the provided data does not account for all possible marital status categories, and there may be individuals within the population who do not fall into these specific categories.