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How many barbers a big city supports

Question

Estimate the number of barbers working in a large city.

Short answer

For a city of about 8 million, roughly 10,000 to 15,000. About 44 million males; say 75%75\% use a barber, about every 55 weeks, giving roughly 3030 million cuts a year. A barber doing about 1212 cuts a day for 250250 days handles about 30003000 a year, so about 10,00010{,}000 barbers, more if many work part-time. Show the chain of assumptions and which ones drive the answer.

Adapted from Crack, Heard on the Street, Q5.5.20, p.55; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.

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