Two girls given various clues about the daughters
Question
A family has two children, each independently a boy or a girl with probability . Find the probability that both are girls given: (a) at least one is a girl; (b) the older child is a girl; (c) at least one is a girl with a particular very rare name.
Short answer
(a) ; (b) ; (c) just under . In (a) only BB is ruled out, leaving GG as one of three cases. In (b) the younger child is independent. In (c), if each girl independently has the name with small probability , the answer is : the rare name nearly identifies one specific child, much like (b).
Adapted from Joshi, Denson & Downes, Quant Job Interview Questions and Answers, Q3.15, p.82; question and answer rewritten by SelfMadeQuant.com.
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Open the worked solutionLessons behind this question
- Conditional Probability, Total Probability, and Bayes' Rule
- Worked Examples — Probability Trees, Monty Hall, and Bayesian Updating
- Sample Spaces, Events, and the Probability Axioms
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