Question

A large company is being sued for gender discrimination because 20% of newly hired candidates are women when 40% of all applicants were women. You plan to use hypothesis testing to determine whether there is significant evidence that the company's hiring practices are discriminatory. State the null and alternative hypotheses for the significance test.

a) H0:p=0.40,Ha:p=0.40
b) H0:p=0.20,Ha:p>0.20
c) H0:p=0.40,Ha:p<0.40
d) H0:p=0.20,Ha:p=0.20

Answer 1

The null hypothesis states that the proportion of newly hired women is 0.40, while the alternative hypothesis states that it is not equal to 0.40.

Step-by-step explanation:

The null and alternative hypotheses for the significance test in this case are as follows:

Null hypothesis (H0): p = 0.40

Alternative hypothesis (Ha): p ≠ 0.40

Here, p represents the proportion of newly hired candidates who are women. The null hypothesis assumes that the proportion is equal to 0.40, while the alternative hypothesis suggests that the proportion is not equal to 0.40. This two-tailed test is used to determine whether there is significant evidence that the company's hiring practices are discriminatory.