Thursday, May 26, 2011

Example 1.9-2 - The Two Children Problem

A family has two children, one of which is a boy. What is the probability the other child is a boy?

Yes, this chestnut. Without the condition that one of the children be a boy, the sample space is
child 1bbgg
child 2bgbg
That one of the children is a boy eliminates the all-girl case, producing the three-outcome sample space
child 1bbg
child 2bgb
It’s easy to distinguish the (b, g) and (g, b) outcomes: in one the brother is older than his sister, in the other he’s younger.? Under the assumption that sex selection is unbiased, and one child doesn’t influence the next, the sample space is symmetric, and each outcome has probability 1/3.

The known boy has a brother in one of the three possible outcomes, for a 1/3 probability.