Question

According to a recent survey, 62 % of the population owns a cat. 37 Percent of cat owners are married, while 44 % of non-cat owners are married. If you randomly select a person, what is the probability that she/he is married?

Answer 1

There are two possibilities that you need to take into account:

1) having a cat and being married

2) not having a cat and being married

P(having a cat) = 0.19

P(no cat) = 1 - P(having a cat) = 1 - (0.19) = 0.81

Since 9% of cat owners are married: (0.19)(0.09) = 0.0171

Since 11% of non-cat owners are married: (0.81)(0.11) = 0.0891

Probability of randomly selected person being married = 0.0171 + 0.0891 = 0.1062