Quantitative Analysis Applied to International Business

Analysis of a Population Essay

Ignacio Ocampo

Introduction
This essay analyses certain data for a given population in a Spanish province. The size of the population is
23,537 individuals for which the age, gender and home size has been determined. We will take and analyze
a sample of 300 individuals and compare the data obtained from the sample to that in the population and
draw conclusions regarding the accuracy of the calculations.

Characteristics of the Population

Age
The mean age of the population is 42.1 years old, with a standard deviation of 11.6. Men are slightly older
in average than women: the mean age among men is 42.5, while for women it is 41.6.

Below we can see the age pyramid (histogram) for certain given age brackets, which gives us an
approximate distribution of the age, by gender. The first bracket starts at the age of 16, since this is the
lowest value found in the population. I have determined six 10-year brackets and one +75 bracket. We
can see some slight differences between the age distributions of the male and female groups. While the
female´s by far largest group is 36-45, for men this group is the largest as well but very similar in numbers
to the 46-55 bracket, which in part explains the slightly higher average age for men. The highest age tiers
contain significantly more women than men, even though the male population is significantly larger than
the female. This may be explained by the general assumption that the life expectancy is higher for women
than for men.
The complete set of data extracted from the population is analyzed on the table below, in which we can
see all the relevant statistical indicators.

Age
Mean 42.147
Standard Error 0.076
Median 42
Mode 48
Standard Deviation 11.617
Variance 134.946
Kurtosis -0.014
Skewness 0.236
Range 82
Minimum 16
Maximum 98
Count 23537

Gender
The proportion of genders is far from balanced: 60.4% of the population are male and 39.6% are female.
This is represented in the pie chart below.
 GENDER PROPORTION

39.6%

Male
60.4% Female

Home Size
The average home size is 112.44 with a standard deviation of 50.99. There seems to be no significant
correlation between age and home size: the correlation coefficient is 0.08. The chart below shows how
home sizes are distributed across age levels. As we can see in the trendline (Red), there is only a very weak
correlation between age and home size. In this chart we can clearly spot a number of outliers that can
move the mean in one direction or another, but when it comes to age, the outliers (few largest homes)
seem to be somewhat evenly distributed across the different age levels.

Home size
1000

900

800

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Also, the difference between home size for men and women seems to be almost negligible: the average
home for men is 112.1 sq. meters, while for women it is a bit larger, 112.8 sq. meters.

In the table below, we can see the complete set of descriptive statistics for the home size population
dataset. One of the key observations is that the distribution is not symmetrical, and values tend to
concentrate in the lower range. This is rather obvious as smaller homes are more common than
excessively large homes. For this reason, we can see that the median is lower than the mean (outliers
are pulling the mean upwards) and the skewness value shows us this fact as well.

Home Size
Mean 112.443
Standard Error 0.332
Median 100.000
Mode 90.000
Standard Deviation 50.990
Variance 2599.949
Kurtosis 36.929
Skewness 4.278
Range 935
Minimum 15
Maximum 950
Count 23537

Sampling

A sample of 300 individuals was extracted of the total population (without replacement). The method
used to obtain a completely random sample was to assign a random number to each of the rows in the
population, then sort by number in an increasing order (could have been decreasing as well) and then
select only the first 300. Out of that sample, the following values were calculated:

Indicator Value
Mean Age 41.43
Age Variance 135.26
Age St Deviation 11.63

Mean Home Size 109.88

Home Size Variance 1794.63
Home Size Std Deviation 42.36

Male Proportion 65.7%

Female Proportion 34.3%
The values do not match exactly those of the population but we they are quite similar. Based on the
degree of similarity, we can conclude that the sample was correctly taken and that the indicators
calculated from the sample approximate to the those in the population. Of course, there is a margin of
error, and we can explain in the following section, the level of confidence for certain given ranges for
these values.

In the table below, the indicators obtained from the sample are compared to those extracted from the
population. This enables us to see the accuracy of the sample and the error

Sample Population
Mean Age 41.43 42.15
Age Variance 135.26 134.95
Age St Deviation 11.63 11.62

Mean Home Size 109.88 112.44

Home Size Variance 1794.63 2599.84
Home Size Std Deviation 42.36 50.99

Male 65.7% 60.4%

Female 34.3% 39.6%

Confidence estimators for the sample

Based on the sample mean calculations and male/female proportions, we have been able to establish a
range in which we can find the real population value for two given degrees of confidence (90% and 95%).

Confidence 90% 95%

Low High Low High
Mean Age 40.32 42.53 40.11 42.75
Mean Home Size 105.84 113.91 105.06 114.69
Male Proportion 61.16% 70.18% 60.29% 71.04%
Female Proportion 29.82% 38.84% 28.96% 39.71%

Given that we have the real values from the population we can see that the real means of the population
and fall within the established ranges for both confidence levels. However, in the case of male/female
proportion, the actual population mean is outside the established range at a 90% confidence. There was
a 10% chance that the actual mean was outside of those limits, and it actually was. However, when the
range is extended to the 95% confidence level, the population mean is within the range.